The New World News, a British Moral Rearmament publication, prints what it calls the “Communist Rules for Revolution,” claiming that the “rules” were captured during a raid on a German Communist organization’s headquarters in Dusseldorf in 1919 by Allied forces during World War I, and published in the Bartlesville, Oklahoma (US) Examiner-Enterprise that same year. In 1946, the NWN writes, the attorney general of Florida, George A. Brautigam, obtained them from a known member of the Communist Party, who told him that the “Rules” were then still a part of the Communist program for the United States. According to the NWN, the “Rules” are as follows: Corrupt the young; get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial; destroy their ruggedness. Get control of all means of publicity, thereby: Get people’s minds off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books, plays, and immoral movies. Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance. Destroy the people’s faith in their natural leaders by holding the latter up to contempt, ridicule, and obloquy. Always preach true democracy, but seize power as fast and as ruthlessly as possible. By encouraging government extravagance, destroy its credit, produce years of inflation with rising prices and general discontent. Incite unnecessary strikes in vital industries, encourage civil disorders, and foster a lenient and soft attitude on the part of government toward such disorders. Cause breakdown of the old moral values—honesty, sobriety, self-restraint, faith in the pledged word, ruggedness. Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretext, with a view to confiscating them and leaving the populace helpless. The “Rules” are a hoax invented by NWN writers: there was no German Communist “Spartacist” headquarters in Dusseldorf, the Examiner-Enterprise never published such a document, and Russian experts at the University of Chicago will label them an “obvious fraud,” “an obvious fabrication,” and “an implausible concoction of American fears and phobias.” In 1970, the New York Times will investigate the document; no copies of it exist in the National Archives, the Library of Congress, or any of the university libraries it examines. Montana Senator Lee Metcalf (D-MT) will look into the document’s existence around the same time, and will learn that both the FBI and CIA have already investigated it and found it to be “completely spurious.” (Brautigam did endorse the “Rules,” and his statement and signature avowing the legitimacy of the “Rules” will give the document a veneer of legitimacy.) However, the “Rules” will continue to be used to claim that Communists are for a number of ideas unpopular among European and American conservatives, most frequently gun control and sex education. The National Rifle Association is one organization that frequently cites the “Rules” in its arguments against gun-control legislation, citing the Communists’ “secret plans” to “confiscate” Americans’ guns and thus “leav[e] the populace helpless.” American and British lawmakers regularly receive copies of the “Rules” in letters and faxes citing their opposition to gun control, sex education, support for labor, or other “Communist” ideals or entities. In 1992, University of Oklahoma political science professor John George and his co-author Laird Wilcox will write in their book Nazis, Communists, Klansmen, and Others on the Fringe, “Widely distributed since the mid-forties, the ‘rules’ have been trundled out at various times when they ‘fit’ or ‘explain’ the issues of the day, especially to argue against firearms control and sex education.” In April 1996, George will say: “These people [meaning far-right American extremists] would love for the document to be real. But it has been exposed again and again as a phony.” Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand will write: “The rules have to do with dividing people into hostile groups, encouraging government extravagance, and fomenting unnecessary ‘strikes’ in vital industries. What we have lost, the list suggests, is a world without dissent, budget deficits, inflation, and labor unrest. I just can’t remember any such Golden Age.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. xx; Free Inquiry, 1999; Rosa Luxemburg, 2003; Snopes (.com), 7/10/2007]

Arthur Porth, a Wichita, Kansas, building contractor, files a claim in a Kansas court to recover his income tax payment of $151. Porth argues that the 16th Amendment is unconstitutional because it places the taxpayer in a position of involuntary servitude contrary to the 13th Amendment. The court rules against Porth, but the defeat does not stop him. For 16 years Porth continues battling the income tax requirement, finding new and inventive challenges to the practice. He claims that the 16th Amendment “put[s] Americans into economic bondage to the international bankers,” a claim that the Southern Poverty Law Center will call “a thinly veiled anti-Semitic reference to the supposed ‘international Jewish banking conspiracy.’” He also argues that because paper money is not backed by gold or silver, taxpayers are not obligated to pay their taxes because “Federal Reserve notes are not dollars.” In 1961, Porth files an income tax return that is blank except for a statement declaring that he is pleading the Fifth Amendment, essentially claiming that filling out a tax return violates his right of protection from self-incrimination, a scheme that quickly becomes popular among anti-tax protesters. Porth becomes an activist and garners something of a following among right-wing audiences, traveling around the country distributing tax protest literature that includes a book, A Manual for Those Who Think That They Must Pay an Income Tax. He even issues his own “arrest warrants” against “bureaucrats” whom, in his view, violate the Constitution. In 1967, Porth is convicted of a number of tax evasion charges, but, as the Anti-Defamation League will later write, “he had already become a grass-roots hero to the nascent tax protest movement.” His cause is championed by, among others, William Potter Gale, who will go on to found the racist, anti-government Posse Comitatus movement (see 1969). Gale uses the newsletter of his Ministry of Christ Church, a church espousing the racist and anti-Semitic theology of Christian Identity (see 1960s and After), to promote Porth and the early tax rebellion movement. Porth exhausts his appeals and goes to jail; though sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, he only serves 77 days. One of Porth’s most active followers is his lawyer, Jerome Daly, whose activism eventually leads to his disbarment (see December 9, 1968 and After). Daly meets Porth in 1965 and files his own “protest” tax return just days before Porth is indicted by a grand jury. Daly is also convicted of tax evasion; in 1969, a federal appeals court will issue a ruling invalidating what has by then become known as the “Porth-Daly Fifth Amendment Return.” Porth receives the support of several far-right organizations, many of whom tie their racist views into his anti-tax protests. In a 1967 article for the far-right American Mercury magazine, tax protester and editor Martin A. Larson writes, “The negroes in the United States are increasing at a rate at least twice as great as the rest of the population,” and warns that the tax burden posed by blacks “unquestionably doomed… the American way of life.” Larson will later write regular columns for the white supremacist magazine The Spotlight, in which he will call black women prostitutes whose “offspring run wild in the streets, free to forage their food in garbage cans, and grow up to become permanent reliefers, criminals, rioters, looters, and, in turn, breeders of huge litters of additional human beings belonging to the same category.” He will also write several books promoting Porth’s anti-tax protest strategies. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Anti-Defamation League, 2011]

One of a number of semi-official ‘Christian Identity’ logos. [Source: KingIdentity (.com)]The “Christian Identity” theology, formerly a fairly benign expression of what is known as “British-Israelism” or “Anglo-Israelism,” begins to spread throughout the US and Canada, particularly on the west coasts of these nations. This belief holds that white Americans and Canadians are the real descendants of the Biblical tribes of Israel. In 2003, author Nicole Nichols, an expert on far-right racist and religious groups in America, will define the concept of “Christian Identity” as practiced by many white supremacist and separatist groups. Christian Identity is not an organization, she will write, but an ideology that many organizations have adopted in some form or fashion. Christian Identity “elevates white supremacy and separatism to a Godly ideal,” she will write, calling it “the ideological fuel that fires much of the activity of the racist far right.” According to Christian Identity theology, Jews are neither the “true Israelites” nor the true “chosen people” of God; instead, Christian Identity proponents claim, Jews are descended from an Asiatic people known as the Khazars, who settled near the Black Sea during the Middle Ages. [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005; Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 5/30/2006] In 2005, the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance will write, “Followers tend to be involved in political movements opposing gun control, equal rights to gays and lesbians, and militia movements,” and quote Michael Barkun, an expert on radical-right groups, as saying, “This virulent racist and anti-Semitic theology… is prevalent among many right-wing extremist groups and has been called the ‘glue’ of the racist right.” [Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 5/30/2006]Beginnings; 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' - In the 1920s, William J. Cameron, editor of the Dearborn Independent weekly newspaper, popularized the anti-Semitic hoax manuscript called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which purported to detail the “secret teachings” of Judaism, including the planned takeover of the world’s governments, the subjugation of non-Semitic races, and the bizarre, cannibalistic rituals supposedly practiced by Jews. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Wesley Swift and 'Mud People' - In the 1940s, a former Methodist minister, Wesley Swift, started his own church, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. Swift had deep ties to a number of radical right-wing groups including the Ku Klux Klan; Swift and his associates set the stage for the mutation of the Christian Identity into a loosely organized set of virulently anti-Semitic, racist belief systems that will come to be grouped together under the “Christian Identity” rubric. Swift himself taught that only the white race was created in the form of God, while Asian and African races were created from the “beasts of the fields,” and thusly are subhuman creations. In Swift’s version of Genesis, Eve, the wife of the first “true” man Adam, was seduced by The Serpent, who masqeueraded as a white man. Eve bore a son, Cain, who is the actual father of the Jewish people. This reinterpretation, sometimes called the “two-seed” or “seedliner” theory, supports the Christian Identity propensity to demonize Jews, whom Swift and others labeled the “spawn of Satan.” Today’s white Europeans and their American and Canadian descendants, Swift taught, are descended from the “true son” of Adam and Eve, Abel, and are the actual “chosen people” of God. Some Christian Identity adherents go even farther, claiming that subhuman “pre-Adamic” races existed and “spawned” the non-white races of the world, which they label “mud people.” [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Permeates Racist, Far-Right Groups - By the 1960s, a new group of Christian Identity leaders emerges to spread the Identity theology through the radical, racist right in America and Canada, popularizing the once-obscure ideology. Most prominent among them are three disciples of Swift: James K. Warner, William Potter Gale, and Richard Butler. Warner, who will move to Louisiana and play a leading role in the fight against civil rights, founds the Christian Defense League and the New Christian Crusade Church. Gale, an early leader of the Christian Defense League and its paramilitary arm, the California Rangers, goes on to found the Posse Comitatus (see 1969), the group that will help bring about the sovereign citizen movement. Gale will later found the Committee of the States and serve as the “chief of staff” of its “unorganized militia.” Butler moves Swift’s Church of Jesus Christ Christian to Idaho and recasts it as the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s). Under the leadership of Butler, Gale, Warner, and others, Christian Identity soon permeates most of the major far-right movements, including the Klan and a racist “skinhead” organization known as the Hammerskins. It also penetrates many extreme anti-government activist groups. The Anti-Defamation League will write, “The resurgence of right-wing extremism in the 1990s following the Ruby Ridge (see August 31, 1992) and Waco standoffs (see April 19, 1993) further spread Identity beliefs.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2005] Nichols will write: “Christian Identity enclaves provide a trail of safe havens for movement activists, stretching from Hayden Lake in northern Idaho (the Aryan Nations stronghold) to Elohim City on the Oklahoma/Arkansas border (see 1973 and After). Many white supremacists on the run from federal authorities have found shelter and support from Christian Identity followers.” Some organizations such as the Montana Militia are headed by Identity adherents, but do not as a group promote the theology. [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Bringing Forth the Apocalypse - Many Christian Identity adherents believe that the Biblical Apocalypse—the end of the world as it is currently known and the final ascendancy of select Christians over all others—is coming soon. Unlike some Christians, Identity adherents do not generally believe in the “rapture,” or the ascendancy of “saved” Christians to Heaven before the Apocalypse ensues; instead, Identity followers believe Jesus Christ will return to Earth only after the time of the “Tribulation,” a great battle between good and evil, which will set the stage for the return of Christ and the final transformation of the world. Identity followers believe it is their duty to prepare for the Apocalypse, and some believe it is their duty to help bring it about. They tend to cast the Apocalypse in racial terms—whites vs. nonwhites. Identity adherents believe that worldly institutions will collapse during the “end times,” and therefore tend to distrust such institutions, making Identity theology appealing to anti-government ideologies of groups such as militia, “Patriot,” and sovereign citizens groups. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]21st Century Identity - In the 21st century, Christian Identity groups are strongest in the Pacific Northwest of America and Canada, and the US Midwest, though Identity churches can be found throughout the US and in other parts of Canada. Identity churches also exist in, among other nations, Ireland, Great Britain, Australia, and South Africa (see June 25, 2003). The Anti-Defamation League will write: “Yet while spread far it is also spread thin. Estimates of the total number of believers in North America vary from a low of 25,000 to a high of 50,000; the true number is probably closer to the low end of the scale. Given this relatively small following, its extensive penetration of the far right is all the more remarkable.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Identity Violence - Identity adherents commit a number of violent acts, often against government and/or financial institutions, in an outsized proportion to their small numbers. In 1983, Identity adherent Gordon Kahl kills two US Marshals who attempt to arrest him on a parole violation, and kills an Arkansas sheriff before finally being gunned down by authorities (see February 13, 1983 and After). The white supremacist terrorist group The Order (see Late September 1983) contains a number of Identity members, including David Tate, who kills a Missouri Highway Patrol officer while attempting to flee to an Identity survivalist compound (see April 15, 1985). During the 1980s, small Identity groups such as The New Order (or The Order II) and the Arizona Patriots commit bombings and armored car robberies. After the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), Identity minister Willie Ray Lampley attempts a number of bombings (see November 9, 1995). In 1996, the Montana Freeman, led by Identity members, “stands off” federal authorities for 81 days (see March 25, 1996). Between 1996 and 1998, Eric Robert Rudolph, who has connections to Identity ministers such as Nord Davis and Dan Gayman, bombs an Atlanta gay bar (see February 21, 1997), several abortion clinics (see October 14, 1998), and the Atlanta Summer Olympics (see July 27, 1996 and After). In 1999, Identity member and former Aryan Nations security guard Buford Furrow goes on a shooting spree at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles (see August 10, 1999). [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]

A Time magazine profile lambasts the racist, anti-Communist John Birch Society (JBS—see December 2011), in what is many Americans’ first exposure to the group. It delineates the organization’s penchant for secrecy, its domination by its “dictatorial” leader, Robert Welch, and its hardline battle against almost every element of the federal government as “agents of Communism.” Forty to 60 percent of the federal government is controlled by Communism, the JBS believes. Time calls the organization “a tiresome, comic-opera joke” that nonetheless has cells in 35 states and an ever-widening influence. In Wichita, Kansas, JBS student members are trained to inform their cell leaders of “Communist” influences they may detect in their classroom lectures, and the offending teacher is berated by parents. A Wichita businessman who wanted to give a donation to the University of Wichita decided not to donate after being hounded by local JBS members, who wanted the university to fire professors and remove selected books from its library. “My business would be wrecked,” the businessman explains, “if those people got on the phone and kept on yelling that I am a Communist because I give money to the school.” Nashville, Tennessee, JBS members organize community members to verbally attack neighbors whom they suspect of Communist affiliations. JBS’s current priority, Time writes, is to bring about the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren. Welch, who obtained his wealth from his brother’s candymaking business, believes that Social Security and the federal income tax are all part of the “creeping socialism” that is taking over the federal government. He retired from the business in 1957 and founded the JBS shortly thereafter, naming it for a US Navy captain killed by Chinese Communist guerrillas after the end of World War II. Welch’s seminal tract, “The Politician,” accuses President Eisenhower and his brother Milton Eisenhower of being Communist plants, and accuses both men of treason against the nation. [Time, 3/10/1961]

Farmer and mechanic Gordon Kahl, a World War II veteran who earned two Purple Hearts while flying bombing missions and a convert to the Christian Identity “religion” (see 1960s and After), now embraces the burgeoning anti-tax protest ideology (see 1951-1967). He writes a letter to the IRS telling it that he will never again “give aid and comfort to the enemies of Christ” by paying income taxes, which he calls tithing to “the synagogue of Satan.” Kahl is a virulent anti-Semite who believes that World War II was engineered by Jewish bankers who had “created” and backed Adolf Hitler in order to subjugate “the feisty German people.” Kahl denies that the Holocaust ever occurred, calling the concentration camps “mostly work camps” where less than 50,000 Jews died. Communism, he writes, is a “smoke screen” for “world Jewry,” which uses every means at its disposal—including the Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs—to deceive and undermine Christians. To his friends and family, Kahl is a loving father and husband and a scrupulously honest businessman, but as author Daniel Levitas will write in 2003: “These virtuous aspects of his character did not extend beyond his small Anglo-Saxon circle, however. Kahl’s world was divided strictly into opposites and he felt only murderous contempt for those who fell on the other side of the line—satanic Jews, nonwhites, and the Christian lackeys of the International Jewish Conspiracy.” Kahl is a firm believer in ZOG, the “Zionist Occupied Government” of the United States, and he believes that most law enforcement officials are either unwitting dupes of this “conspiracy” or knowing members. Kahl leaves California for the West Texas oilfields, and in 1973 joins the anti-tax, anti-government Posse Comitatus (see 1969). [Levitas, 2002, pp. 193] Kahl will be convicted of tax evasion (see 1975 - 1981) and, fleeing incarceration, will kill two police officers in a shootout and later die himself after killing a third (see February 13, 1983 and After and March 13 - June 3, 1983).

The logo of the Posse Comitatus. [Source: Underground News Network]The Posse Comitatus, an anti-Semitic, right-wing “Christian Identity” organization (see 1960s and After), is founded by retired dry-cleaning executive Henry L. Beach in Portland, Oregon, who calls his organization the Sherriff’s Posse Comitatus (SPC) or Citizen’s Law Enforcement Research Committee (CLERC). Beach has supported Nazism since the 1930s, and formerly led a neo-Nazi organization called the Silver Shirts (see January 31, 1933). The Posse Comitatus is quickly taken over by William Potter Gale, a retired Army colonel who founded a similar organization called the US Christian Posse Association in Glendale, California, and manages to roll the two groups, and a few other loosely organized entities, into one. The Posse Comitatus dedicates itself to survivalism, vigilantism, and anti-government activities; its bylaws state that no federal or state governmental entity has any legal standing, and only county and town governments are legitimate. Furthermore, the organization believes that the entire federal government is controlled by Jews, and as such has no authority over whites. Beach’s original Posse manual states, “[O]fficials of government who commit criminal acts or who violate their oath of office… shall be removed by the posse to the most populated intersection of streets in the township and, at high noon, be hung by the neck, the body remaining until sundown as an example to those who would subvert the law.” According to a 1986 advisory published by the IRS, “members associated with some of the Posse groups wear tiny gold hangmen’s nooses on their lapels.” Posse members refuse to pay taxes whenever they can get away with it, and ignore laws that they feel cannot be enforced by “the enemy.” Instead, they claim to abide by a “common law,” defined as a set of principles that they themselves create and change at will. The organization begins making inroads into the farm communities of the Northwest and Upper Midwest after federal mismanagement of agricultural policies threatens the livelihood of many area farmers; the Posse tells them, “Farmers are victims of a Jewish-controlled government and banking system, federal taxes are illegal and loans need not be repaid.” Some area farmers embrace the message, and the Posse begins heavily recruiting in Michigan. [Ian Geldard, 2/19/1995; Nicole Nichols, 2003]Anti-Government, Anti-Tax Ideology - The Posse Comitatus believes that the federal and state governments are inherently illegal and have no authority whatsoever; the highest elected official of the land, it says, is the county sheriff, who can form juries and call out “posses” of citizens to enforce the law as necessary. The movement strongly opposes paying taxes, particularly to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and considers money issued by the Federal Reserve System as illegal. It says that the Constitution’s 16th Amendment, which gave Congress the right to tax citizens’ incomes, was illegally ratified and therefore unconstitutional; moreover, it says, careful examination of federal law tells it that income taxes are entirely voluntary. The Federal Reserve System is, as one Posse publication puts it, “a private monopoly which neither the people nor the states authorized in the Constitution.” The Federal Reserve’s printed money violates the Constitution. Some, but not all, Posse Comitatus members also express racist and separatist views similar to those of Christian Identity believers (see 1960s and After); these members say that the Federal Reserve is controlled by a small cabal of international Jewish bankers who intend to destroy the American economy. [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996; US Constitution: Sixteenth Amendment, 2011; Anti-Defamation League, 2011] Posse Comitatus members use the threat of violence, and sometimes actual violence, to express their anti-tax and anti-government ideologies (see 1972 and 1974). Township Movement - The Posse spawns a directly related ideology, the “township movement,” led in part by Utah resident Walt P. Mann. Township advocates advocate setting up small sovereign communities that are answerable only to themselves. The Posse will set up a “constitutional township” on a 1,400-acre plot in Wisconsin and name it “Tigerton Dells,” posting signs that say, “Federal Agents Keep out; Survivors will be Prosecuted.” Tigerton Dells will appoint its own judges and foreign ambassadors before federal authorities seize the property (see 1984). Movement Spreads throughout Northwest, Plains States - By 1976, an FBI report says that the Posse Comitatus movement will consist of up to 50,000 adherents throughout the Northwest and Great Plains states. The center of the movement is at Tigerton Dells; Posse members there will disrupt local government meetings and assault public officials. The farm crisis of the early 1980s will allow the Posse to begin converting angry, frightened farmers throughout the region. In 1996, the Anti-Defamation League’s Mark Pitcavage will write, “The Posse offered up targets for people to blame: the courts, the money system, the federal government, the Jews.” Waging Legal Battles - While some Posse members offer violence to law enforcement and public officials (see February 13, 1983 and After), most of their battles with the government take place in court. Posse members most frequently use two common legal strategems: filing frivolous liens on the properties of public officials who oppose or anger them, particularly IRS agents, and flooding the courts with a barrage of legal documents, filings, motions, and appeals. The liens carry no legal weight but sometimes damage the recipients’ credit scores and interfere with the recipients’ ability to buy or sell property. The court documents, often written in arcane, archaic, and contradictory legal language, clog the court system and frustate judges and prosecutors. A related tactic is the establishment of “common law courts,” vigilante courts that often threaten public officials. [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996]Inspiration to Other Groups - The Posse Comitatus’s ideology will inspire other anti-government groups, such as the Montana Freemen (see 1993-1994).

The Aryan Nations logo. [Source: Southern Poverty Law Center]Aerospace engineer and white racist Richard Butler, who departed California in the early 1970s and moved into a rural farmhouse in Hayden Lake, Idaho, founds and develops one of the nation’s most notorious and violent white separatist groups, the Aryan Nations. Butler’s 20-acre farmhouse becomes the compound for the group and its affiliated church, the Church of Jesus Christ Christian; Butler and his nascent organization envision a “whites-only” “homeland” in the Pacific Northwest. At age 11, Butler read a serialized novel in Liberty Magazine, depicting the takeover of the US by “race-mixing Bolsheviks” that deeply impressed him. As a young man, he worked as an aeronautical engineer in India, where he was fascinated by the Indian caste structure and the concept of racial purity. In 1941 he left a Los Angeles church after concluding that the preacher was spreading Communist doctrine. During World War II, as an Army engineer, he became fascinated by the German military, and later recalls that he “was thrilled to see the movies of the marching Germans.… In those days, all we knew was that Hitler hated communists, and so did my folks—as we did as teenagers.” In the 1950s, Butler was enthralled by radio broadcasts of then-Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) and his “Red scare” accusations, and sent money to support McCarthy’s political campaigns. During that time, Butler met William Potter Gale, another white supremacist who went on to found the Posse Comitatus (see 1969). Butler held a high position in the Christian Defense League, an organization founded by the Reverend Wesley Swift and described by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as “virulently anti-Semitic,” until 1965, and shortly thereafter became a mail-order “ordained minister” of Christian Identity, a white supremacist offshoot of the Christian church (see 1960s and After). Butler buys the farmhouse in Hayden Lake and founds his own “Christian Posse Comitatus,” and thereafter founds the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. The two groups merge into what later becomes known as Aryan Nations. [Washington Post, 6/2/2003; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010]

Andreas Strassmeir, a frequent Elohim City resident and arms expert. [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Robert Millar, a former Mennonite who left Canada for the US in the early 1950s, moves to the Ozark Mountain region of eastern Oklahoma and founds what he calls “Elohim City,” a small compound populated by his four sons and 12 other followers. Elohim City grows to become a 400-acre compound populated with 70 to 100 “Christian Identity” white supremacists and religious extremists, who believe that whites are the only true people and all others are subhuman “mud people” (see 1960s and After). Elohim is a Hebrew word for God. Elohim City, accessible only via a rocky road and a single steel bridge, soon becomes a haven for violent right-wing extremists, including Timothy McVeigh, who will call the compound two weeks before bombing a federal building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and Andreas “Andy the German” Strassmeir, a German weapons buff with ties to neo-Nazi groups and an alleged co-conspirator of McVeigh’s (see August 1994 - March 1995). The residents receive intensive paramilitary training, often led by Strassmeir, and the compound contains a large arsenal of weapons. Elohim City becomes the headquarters of the Aryan Republican Army (see 1992 - 1995), an organization that has Strassmeir as its “chief of security.” Some of the Elohim City residents such as ARA member Dennis Mahon come to believe that Strassmeir is a government informant. Author Nicole Nichols, an expert on right-wing hate groups, will later say she believes Strassmeir is the infamous “John Doe #2” of the Oklahoma City bombing (see April 20, 1995). [Associated Press, 2/23/1997; Time, 2/24/1997; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003] A 2002 report by the Anti-Defamation League says that after the Oklahoma City bombing, Elohim City changes to become a less militant settlement, populated largely by white separatists and religious fundamentalists seeking to withdraw from the world. Before his death in 2001, Millar says: “Somebody said, ‘You’re not a racist, you’re a purist.’ I sort of liked that.” John Millar, who becomes the community leader after his father’s death, says: “[W]e consider ourselves survivalists in the sense that we want to survive the best way we can.… We have weapons, but any person within 15 miles of us has more weapons per household than we do. We don’t make a big thing about weapons. We don’t think we can keep the National Guard away with a few weapons.” An unnamed government informer tells a New York Post reporter in June 2001: “McVeigh is a hero inside Elohim City. They look upon him ‘as a martyr to their cause.’” [Anti-Defamation League, 8/9/2002]

Rose Mary Woods. [Source: Genevieve Naylor / Corbis]A gap of 18 and ½ minutes is found on the tape of a conversation between President Nixon and his aide, H. R. Haldeman, from June 20, 1972 (see July 13-16, 1973). Nixon lawyer Fred Buzhardt says he has no explanation for “the phenomenon.” Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods, denies any deliberate erasure. But electronics experts will eventually find that the tape has been deliberately erased at least five separate times. White House chief of staff Alexander Haig will blame “some sinister force” for the erasure. Watergate Discussed - Former Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox’s subpoena of the tape (see July 23-26, 1973) says that “there is every reason to infer that the meeting included discussion of the Watergate incident.” That supposition is bolstered by previous testimony from former White House aide John Ehrlichman (see July 24, 1973). Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski says he is considering having all the remaining Watergate tapes placed under guard to prevent any further tampering. [Washington Post, 11/22/1973; Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum, 7/3/2007]Three Suspects - Evidence later shows that only three people could have made the erasure: Woods; Stephen Bull, Nixon’s assistant; and Nixon himself. [Reston, 2007, pp. 33]Washington Post Learns of Gap - Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward learned of “deliberate erasures” in the first week of November from his FBI source, W. Mark Felt (see May 31, 2005). White House sources confirmed that the tapes were often of poor quality, and that some inadvertent gaps existed, but, as press secretary Ron Ziegler tells Woodward’s colleague Carl Bernstein, to say that those gaps were deliberate would be “inaccurate.” When the deliberate gap is reported, Ziegler calls Bernstein to say that he did not know about the gap beforehand. Neither Bernstein nor Woodward doubt Ziegler—by this time, it is obvious that Nixon’s paranoia and penchant for secrecy extends even to the most trusted members of his staff. [Bernstein and Woodward, 1974, pp. 333-334]Symbolic - In 2005, Woodward will write: “The missing 18 1/2-minute gap soon becomes a symbol for Nixon’s entire Watergate problem. The truth had been deleted. The truth was missing.” [Woodward, 2005, pp. 103]

Tax protester Ardie McBrearty founds the United States Taxpayers Union (USTU), an organization dedicated to abolishing the 16th Amendment (see 1951-1967 and 1970-1972), and also the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), consumer protection statutes, gun control laws, and other “unconstitutional” legislation. McBrearty, an avowed Christian Identity follower (see 1960s and After), will abandon tax protest in favor of armed white supremacist militancy, joining The Order (see Late September 1983 and August 1984 and After). He will eventually earn 40 years in prison for his role in The Order’s violent actions. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001] In a 1982 lawsuit, McBrearty will argue that a 1977 agreement with UTSU mandated that the group should pay “all necessary personal and family obligations of said individual [and] all costs incurred in the defense of a client member.” McBrearty will be convicted for tax law violations in 1979 and will sue the UTSU shortly thereafter. The courts will dismiss the lawsuit because such an agreement “contravene[s] public policy and [i]s therefore unenforceable.” [OpenJurist, 1/18/1982] It is unclear whether McBrearty’s loss of the lawsuit triggers his desire to join a more actively violent organization, such as The Order.

James Wickstrom. [Source: Southern Poverty Law Center]James Wickstrom, a tool salesman and former mill worker angered by what he saw as less-qualified African-American workers bypassing him in receiving raises and promotions, meets Thomas Stockheimer (see 1974), a member of the violent anti-tax, racist, and anti-Semitic organization Posse Comitatus (see 1969). Wickstrom walks by Stockheimer’s “Little People’s Tax Party” office in Racine, Wisconsin, each week, and is accosted by Stockheimer, who asks him: “Do you know who you are? Do you really know who you are? Do you know that you’re an Israelite?” Initially Wickstrom is offended at being called, he believes, a Jew, but after a discussion, leaves with two audiotapes of sermons by Posse founder William Potter Gale that tell him he is a member of God’s chosen people, a member of the “true” Israelite tribe; Jews are the offspring of Satan and are unworthy of being called Israelites. Blacks, Gale preaches, are subhuman, no better than beasts of the field, and merely tools of the Jewish conspiracy to destroy white Western society. Wickstrom finds Gale’s message appealing, and he joins Stockheimer in setting up a Bible study group. Wickstrom follows in Gale’s footsteps and becomes an adherent of the Christian Identity ideology (see 1960s and After). Stockheimer flees Racine ahead of the police, who intend to have him complete his jail sentence for assaulting an IRS agent, and Wickstrom quits his job and moves to Schell City, Missouri; he will later explain the move, saying, “I wanted to be with like-minded people.” He buys property near Identity minister Dan Gayman, becomes a teacher at a small private school operated by Gayman and another Identity minister, Loren Kallstrom, and in 1977 founds his own church, Mission of Jesus the Christ Church, living off tithes and donations. After a falling out with Gayman, in 1978 Wickstrom moves back to Wisconsin, at the invitation of Posse member Donald Minniecheske, who wants him to take part in the establishment of a Posse compound on the shores of the Embarrass River (see 1978 - 1983). [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004]

Masthead of one of Ron Paul’s newsletters. [Source: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education]A number of newsletters released by Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), a self-described libertarian and strict Constitutionalist, contain what many believe to be racially objectionable remarks and claims. Paul’s monthly newsletters are published under a variety of names, including “Ron Paul’s Freedom Report,” “Ron Paul Political Report,” and “The Ron Paul Survival Report.” The newsletters are published by several organizations, including Paul’s non-profit group the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, and a group called Ron Paul & Associates. For a time, Ron Paul & Associates also publishes “The Ron Paul Investment Letter.” In 1996, a challenger for Paul’s House seat, Charles “Lefty” Morris (D-TX) makes public some of the racially inflammatory content in Paul’s newsletters. The newsletters will be publicly exposed in a 2008 article in the New Republic (see January 8-15, 2008). The content, culled from years of newsletters, includes such claims and observations as: From a 1992 newsletter: “[O]pinion polls consistently show only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action.” Politically “sensible” blacks are outnumbered “as decent people.” The same report claims that 85 percent of all black men in the District of Columbia have been arrested, and continues: “Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the ‘criminal justice system,’ I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.… [W]e are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, [but] it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.” The same 1992 edition has Paul claiming that the government should lower the age at which accused juvenile criminals can be prosecuted as adults. “We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23,” the newsletter states. “That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary, and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.” The newsletter also asserts that sophisticated crimes such as “complex embezzling” are conducted exclusively by non-blacks: “What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn’t that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?” Another 1992 newsletter states, “[I]f you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.” An undated newsletter excerpt states that US Representative Barbara Jordan (D-TX), who is African-American, is “the archetypical half-educated victimologist” whose “race and sex protect her from criticism.” The newsletters often use disparaging nicknames and descriptions for lawmakers. Jordan is called “Barbara Morondon.” Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is a “black pinko.” Donna Shalala, the head of the Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration, is a “short lesbian.” Ron Brown, the head of the Department of Commerce during the Clinton administration, is a “racial victimologist.” Roberta Achtenberg, the first openly gay public official confirmed by the US Senate, is a “far-left, normal-hating lesbian activist.” Newsletter items through the early 1990s attack Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., renaming him “X-Rated Martin Luther King” and labeling him a “world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours,” “seduced underage girls and boys,” and “made a pass at” fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridicules black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis” were better alternatives. The same year, King is described as “a comsymp [Communist sympathizer], if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration.” One 1990 excerpt says of the King holiday: “I voted against this outrage time and again as a congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day!” An undated excerpt from a newsletter entry titled “Needlin’” says: “‘Needlin’,’ a new form of racial terrorism, has struck New York City streets on the tony Upper West Side. At least 39 white women have been stuck with used hypodermic needles—perhaps infected with AIDS—by gangs of black girls between the ages of 12 and 14. The New York Times didn’t find this fit to print for weeks and weeks, until its candidate David Dinkins [New York City’s first African-American mayor] was safely elected. Even then the story was very low key, with race mentioned many paragraphs into it. Who can doubt that if this situation were reversed, if white girls had done this to black women, we would have been subjected to months-long nationwide propaganda campaign on the evils of white America? The double standard strikes again.” The excerpt is presumably published sometime after 1989, when Dinkins is elected mayor of New York City. In 2011, NewsOne reporter Casey Gane-McCalla will write, “I could find no evidence of this ‘epidemic’ and the article seems to have no point other than to make white people scared of black people.” A December 1989 “special issue” of the Investment Letter addresses what it calls “racial terrorism,” and tells readers what to expect from the 1990s: “Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities” because “mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white ‘haves.’” In February 1990, another newsletter warns of “The Coming Race War.” In November 1990, an item advises readers: “If you live in a major city, and can leave, do so. If not, but you can have a rural retreat, for investment and refuge, buy it.” In June 1991, an entry on racial disturbances in Washington, DC’s Adams Morgan neighborhood is titled, “Animals Take Over the DC Zoo,” calling the disturbances “the first skirmish in the race war of the 1990s.” In June 1992, the Ron Paul Political Report publishes a “special issue” that explains the Los Angeles riots, claiming, “Order was only restored in LA when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began.” The looting, the newsletter writes, is a natural byproduct of government indulging the black community with “‘civil rights,’ quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black TV shows, black TV anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda.” It also denounces “the media” for believing that “America’s number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks.” The newsletter praises Asian merchants in Los Angeles for having the fortitude to resist political correctness and fight back. Koreans, the newsletter writes, are “the only people to act like real Americans” during the riots, “mainly because they have not yet been assimilated into our rotten liberal culture, which admonishes whites faced by raging blacks to lie back and think of England.” Another newsletter entry from around the same time strikes some of the same chords in writing about riots in Chicago after the NBA’s Chicago Bulls win the championship: “[B]lacks poured into the streets in celebration. How to celebrate? How else? They broke the windows of stores to loot, even breaking through protective steel shutters with crowbars to steal everything in sight.” The entry goes on to claim that black rioters burned down buildings all along Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile,” destroyed two taxicabs, “shot or otherwise injured 95 police officers,” killed five people including a liquor-store owner, and injured over 100 others. “Police arrested more than 1,000 blacks,” the newsletter claims. In 2011, Gane-McCalla will write that the newsletter entry falsely accuses blacks of perpetuating all of the violence, when in reality, the violence was perpetuated by people of all ethnicities. One thousand people—not 1,000 blacks—were arrested. And, he will write, “two officers suffered minor gunshot wounds and that 95 were injured in total, but the way Paul phrased it, it would seem most of the 95 officers injured were shot.” An undated newsletter entry says that “black talk radio” features “racial hatred [that] makes a KKK rally look tame. The blacks talk about their own racial superiority, how the whites have a conspiracy to wipe them out, and how they are going to take over the country and wipe them out. They only differ over whether they should use King’s non-violent approach (i.e. state violence) or use private violence.” An undated newsletter entry discusses “the newest threat to your life and limb, and your family—carjacking,” blaming it on blacks who follow “the hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos.” The entry advises potential carjacking victims to shoot carjackers, then “leave the scene immediately [and] dispos[e] of the wiped-off gun as soon as possible.” The entry concludes: “I frankly don’t know what to make of such advice, but even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I’ve urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self-defense. For the animals are coming.” [Houston Chronicle, 5/21/1996; New Republic, 1/8/2008; NewsOne, 5/6/2011]According to author and militia/white supremacist expert David Neiwert, much of Paul’s information about black crime comes from Jared Taylor, the leader of the American Renaissance movement (see January 23, 2005). Taylor, Neiwert will write, cloaks his racism in “pseudo-academic” terminology that is published both in a magazine, American Renaissance, and later in a book, The Color of Crime, both of which make what Neiwert calls “unsupportable claims about blacks.” [David Neiwert, 6/8/2007]Conspiracies, Right-Wing Militias, and Bigotry - The newsletters often contain speculations and assertions regarding a number of what reporter James Kirchick will call “shopworn conspiracies.” Paul, as reflected in his newsletter, distrusts the “industrial-banking-political elite” and does not recognize the federally regulated monetary system and its use of paper currency. The newsletters often refer to to the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1978, a newsletter blames David Rockefeller, the Trilateral Commission, and “fascist-oriented, international banking and business interests” for the Panama Canal Treaty, which it calls “one of the saddest events in the history of the United States.” A 1988 newsletter cites a doctor who believes that AIDS was created in a World Health Organization laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland. In addition, Ron Paul & Associates sells a video about the Branch Davidian tragedy outside Waco (see April 19, 1993) produced by “patriotic Indiana lawyer Linda Thompson” (see April 3, 1993 and September 19, 1994), as a newsletter calls her, who insists that Waco was a conspiracy to kill ATF agents who had previously worked for President Clinton as bodyguards. Kirchick will note that outside of the newsletters, Paul is a frequent guest on radio shows hosted by Alex Jones, whom Kirchick will call “perhaps the most famous conspiracy theorist in America.” Connections to Neo-Confederate Institute - Kirchick goes on to note Paul’s deep ties with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank in Alabama founded by Paul’s former chief of staff, Lew Rockwell; Paul has taught seminars at the institute, serves as a “distinguished counselor,” and has published books through the institute. The von Mises Institute has a long history of support for white-supremacist neo-Confederate groups, including the League of the South, led by Confederate apologist Thomas Woods (see October 14, 2010). Paul will endorse books by Woods and other neo-Confederates. Paul seems to agree with members of the von Mises institute in their view that the Civil War was the beginning of a horrific federal tyranny that ran roughshod over states’ rights. Paul, in his newsletters and speeches, has frequently espoused the idea of states’ secession as protest against the federal government. Lamenting the South African Revolution - In March 1994, a newsletter warns of a “South African Holocaust,” presumably against white South Africans, once President Nelson Mandela takes office. Previous newsletters call the transition from a whites-only government to a majority-African government a “destruction of civilization” that is “the most tragic [to] ever occur on that continent, at least below the Sahara.” Praise for Ku Klux Klan Leader's Political Aspirations - In 1990, a newsletter item praises Louisiana’s David Duke, the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, for coming in a strong second in that state’s Republican Senate primary. “Duke lost the election,” the newsletter says, “but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment.” In 1991, a newsletter asks, “Is David Duke’s new prominence, despite his losing the gubernatorial election, good for anti-big government forces?” The conclusion is that “our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom.” Duke will in return give support to Paul’s 2008 presidential candidacy. Attacking Gays, AIDS Research - Paul’s newsletters often praise Paul’s “old colleague,” Representative William Dannemeyer (R-CA), a noted anti-gay activist who often advocates forcibly quarantining people suffering from AIDS. Paul’s newsletters praise Dannemeyer for “speak[ing] out fearlessly despite the organized power of the gay lobby.” In 1990, one newsletter mentions a reporter from a gay magazine “who certainly had an axe to grind, and that’s not easy with a limp wrist.” In an item titled, “The Pink House?” the newsletter complains about President George H.W. Bush’s decision to sign a hate crimes bill and invite “the heads of homosexual lobbying groups to the White House for the ceremony,” adding, “I miss the closet.” The same article states, “Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.” If homosexuals are ever allowed to openly serve in the military, another newsletter item concludes, they, “if admitted, should be put in a special category and not allowed in close physical contact with heterosexuals.” One newsletter calls AIDS “a politically protected disease thanks to payola and the influence of the homosexual lobby,” and alternates between praising anti-gay rhetoric and accusing gays of using the disease to further their own political agenda. One item tells readers not to get blood transfusions because gays are trying to “poison the blood supply.” Another cites a far-right Christian publication that advocates not allowing “the AIDS patient” to eat in restaurants, and echoes the false claim that “AIDS can be transmitted by saliva.” The newsletters often advertise a book, Surviving the AIDS Plague, which makes a number of false claims about casual transmission and defends “parents who worry about sending their healthy kids to school with AIDS victims.” Blasting Israel - Kirchick will note that the newsletters are relentless in their attacks on Israel. A 1987 issue of the Investment Letter calls Israel “an aggressive, national socialist state.” A 1990 newsletter cites the “tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise.” Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (see February 26, 1993), a newsletter said, “Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little.” Another newsletter column criticizing lobbyists says, “By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government” and that the goal of the “Zionist movement” is to stifle criticism. Violent Anti-Government Rhetoric - In January 1995, three months before the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), a newsletter lists “Ten Militia Commandments,” describing “the 1,500 local militias now training to defend liberty” as “one of the most encouraging developments in America.” It warns militia members that they are “possibly under BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] or other totalitarian federal surveillance” and prints bits of advice from the Sons of Liberty, an anti-government militia based in Alabama—among them, “You can’t kill a Hydra by cutting off its head,” “Keep the group size down,” “Keep quiet and you’re harder to find,” “Leave no clues,” “Avoid the phone as much as possible,” and “Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.” Slandering Clinton - Newsletters printed during President Clinton’s terms in office claim that Clinton uses cocaine and has fathered illegitimate children. Repeating the rumor that Clinton is a longtime cocaine user, in 1994 Paul writes that the speculation “would explain certain mysteries” about the president’s scratchy voice and insomnia. “None of this is conclusive, of course, but it sure is interesting,” he states. Distance from Newsletter - In 2008, Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton will attempt to distance Paul from the newsletters, saying that while Paul wrote some of their content, he often did not, and in many instances never saw the content. Benton will say that the frequent insults and vitriol directed at King are particularly surprising, because, Benton will say, “Ron thinks Martin Luther King is a hero.” In 1996, Paul claims ownership of the content, but says that Morris took the newsletter quotes “out of context” (see May 22 - October 11, 1996). In 2001, Paul will claim that he did not write any of the passages, and will claim having no knowledge of them whatsoever (see October 1, 2001). Most of the newsletters’ articles and columns contain no byline, and the Internet archives of the newsletters begin in 1999. In 2008, Kirchick will find many of the older newsletters on file at the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Kirchick will note the lack of bylines, and the general use of the first person in the material, “implying that Paul was the author.” Kirchick will conclude: “[W]hoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul’s name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him—and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays.” Paul, Kirchick writes, is “a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.” Kirchick will conclude: “Paul’s campaign wants to depict its candidate as a naive, absentee overseer, with minimal knowledge of what his underlings were doing on his behalf. This portrayal might be more believable if extremist views had cropped up in the newsletters only sporadically—or if the newsletters had just been published for a short time. But it is difficult to imagine how Paul could allow material consistently saturated in racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy-mongering to be printed under his name for so long if he did not share these views. In that respect, whether or not Paul personally wrote the most offensive passages is almost beside the point. If he disagreed with what was being written under his name, you would think that at some point—over the course of decades—he would have done something about it.” [New Republic, 1/8/2008; NewsOne, 5/6/2011] In 2008, Paul will deny writing virtually any of his newsletters’ various content (see January 8-15, 2008 and January 16, 2008).

Joseph Paul Franklin. [Source: Jackson Clarion Ledger]Joseph Paul Franklin, a resident of Memphis, Tennessee, confesses to attempting to kill Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, and civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. Franklin’s motives are, according to his own statements, frankly racist. He admits to having been a member of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, a former believer in the Christian Identity theology (see 1960s and After), and for a long time considered himself a Nazi. On March 6, 1978, he shot Flynt outside a Georgia courtroom, paralyzing the publisher for life. On May 29, 1980, he shot and severely injured Jordan outside a Fort Wayne, Indiana, Marriott hotel. Franklin says he tried to kill Flynt because he published photographs of a racially mixed couple having simulated sex. He says he shot Jordan, an African-American, because he saw him with a white woman. From 1977 through 1980, Franklin says, he embarked on a “mission” to rid America of blacks, Jews, and whites who like minorities. He claims the credit for robbing a number of banks, bombing a Tennessee synagogue, killing two black men in Utah who were jogging with white women, and shooting a black man and white woman as they left a Tennessee restaurant. In total, Franklin says he may have killed 20 people in a 10-state, racially motivated shooting spree; when asked how many he’d killed, he says, “Not nearly enough.” Franklin explains why he shot so many people: “I was trying to start a race war at the time.… I figured other whites would do it, too, and eventually we’d have a full-fledged race war.” He says that in 1977 he went on the “warpath. I decided to cut loose in 1977. I was working these dead-end jobs. I thought, ‘I’m just going to go out and kill some Jews.’” Franklin says he was inspired in part by convicted serial killer Charles Manson. He is convicted of a number of crimes, including the 1977 murder of Missouri resident Gerald Gordon, and sentenced to death for Gordon’s murder. During his murder trial, Franklin calmly explains the length he went to to avoid detection: buying a rifle in Dallas through a classified ad, filing off the serial number, and carrying it in a guitar case; finding synagogues in the Yellow Pages, using a bicycle to approach and leave the scenes of his crimes quickly and without detection; and using a police scanner to keep abreast of law enforcement activities. He tells the court that he has no regrets regarding any of his crimes: asked if he feels remorse for any of his actions, he says: “I can’t say that I do. The only thing I’m sorry about is that it’s not legal.” Asked, “What’s not legal?” he replies, “Killing Jews.” Psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis, who has interviewed a large number of serial killers and spree killers, testifies that Franklin is a paranoid schizophrenic, details the brutal physical abuse he suffered as a child, and details a number of bizarre beliefs he seems to hold. Franklin denies being “stark raving mad,” but admits to a few “minor neuroses.” As to Lewis’s contention that he was unable to stop himself from committing his crimes, Franklin says: “I think it is hogwash, to tell you the truth. I knew exactly what I was doing.” Lewis later says she believes all serial and spree killers are mentally or emotionally dysfunctional and not directly responsible for their actions. [Time, 11/16/1980; New Yorker, 2/24/1997; Jackson Clarion Ledger, 2/25/2010] The 1989 novel Hunter, by William Pierce, the author of the infamous Turner Diaries (see 1978), will be dedicated to Franklin. The main character of the novel kills interracial couples in an attempt to foment a race war. [New York Times, 7/24/2002] The racist, white supremacist group Aryan Nations will give Franklin a medal for his actions. [Jackson Clarion Ledger, 2/25/2010]

Douglas Bay, Dominica. [Source: Happy Tellus (.com)]Two of three mercenaries accused of plotting to overthrow the government of the tiny Caribbean island nation of Dominica are found guilty of conspiracy and violation of the Neutrality Act. Stephen Don Black, a prominent Alabama Ku Klux Klan leader, and Joe Daniel Hawkins, a Klansman from Mississippi, are found guilty of the charges. Both are found not guilty of violating five firearms statutes. The plot began in 1979, when the neighboring island country of Grenada was taken over by a socialist regime with ties to the Communist government of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Mike Perdue, a former Marine and prominent white supremacist, discussed retaking Grenada with ousted former Prime Minister Eric Gairy. Perdue sought out Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke, who put him in touch with white supremacist Donald Clarke Andrews, then living in Canada. Andrews had led the white supremacist group Western Guard, and after serving a jail sentence for neo-Nazi activities, founded a new pro-Aryan group, the Nationalist Party of Canada. Andrews convinced Perdue that Dominica might be a good place from which to stage a coup in Grenada. Dominica was in the grip of grinding poverty, having been devastated by a hurricane in 1979 and plagued with racial violence from a splinter group of Rastafarians called the Dreads. The island’s government was unstable and, Perdue and Andrews believed, ripe for overthrow. Perdue partnered with another supremacist, Wolfgang Droege, and began planning to stage a coup that would place former Prime Minister Patrick John back in power. Even though John was something of a leftist, and wanted to displace the much more right-wing and pro-American Prime Minister, Eugenia Charles, in September 1980 Perdue and John agreed in writing to commence what they called “Operation Red Dog,” a violent coup with the goal of placing John back in charge of the government. The Washington Times will later report: “The coup forged some odd alliances. [It] united right-wing North Americans and Caribbean leftists, white nationalists and black revolutionaries; First World capitalists and Third World Socialists.” Canadian writer Stewart Bell later describes Perdue as a man of no real political convictions and a lust for money who routinely lies about his Vietnam experience (he never served in Southeast Asia, and did not tell his companions that he was a homosexual), and Droege as a German-Canadian high school dropout with neo-Nazi sympathies. Others involved in the putative coup are nightclub owner and white supremacist Charles Yanover, gunrunner Sydney Burnett-Alleyne (who supplied the initial connection to John), Black, Hawkins, and a small number of others. The mercenaries’ plan was to put John back in power; in return, John would give them license to use the island as a haven for casinos, drug smuggling, and money laundering. Almost from the outset, the conspiracy was infiltrated by two agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), John Osburg and Wally Grafton, who were alerted to the planned coup by charter boat captain Mike Howell. Perdue had tried to hire Howell to take the mercenaries to Dominica, and told Howell that his was a CIA operation. Members of the operation also talked to others about it; one even gave a “secret” interview to a radio reporter in Hamilton. Osburg and Grafton alerted law enforcement authorities; on the night of the raid, federal authorities overwhelmed the small band of mercenaries, arrested them all, and confiscated a large number of firearms, 10 pounds of dynamite, over 5,000 rounds of ammunition, and a large red-and-black Nazi flag. The operation was later derisively termed the “Bayou of Pigs,” a joking reference to the 1961 attempt by right-wing American mercenaries to overthrow Castro’s government. John was arrested in Dominica. Perdue and six other participants have already pled guilty to violating the Neutrality Act. Before his sentencing of three years in prison, Black says, “What we were doing was in the best interests of the United States and its security in the hemisphere, and we feel betrayed by our own government.” [Time, 5/11/1981; United Press International, 6/21/1981; New Times, 2/19/1998; Washington Times, 10/5/2008; Winnipeg Free Press, 11/2/2008] After serving his jail term, Black will go on to found the influential white supremacist organization Stormfront (see March 1995 and June 22, 2008).

An undated photo of LeRoy Schweitzer. [Source: WorldNews]LeRoy Schweitzer, a crop duster in Montana and Idaho, becomes increasingly frustrated and resentful at what he considers interference by the government. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Schweitzer moves toward becoming an anti-government tax resister. He becomes fascinated by the legal ideology of the Posse Comitatus (see 1969), attends numerous Posse meetings, and has some contacts with members of The Order (see Late September 1983). Schweitzer, well-liked by his neighbors and friends, begins to worry them with his increasing extremism. He helps a friend, Bernard Kuennan, mount a legal defense against charges of letting his dog roam unvaccinated, and the two hammer the judge with questions about the differences between “admiralty” and “common law” (see Fall 2010). He defies police officers who stop him for traffic violations. He moves to Montana, where he refuses to get a license to fly his Cessna crop duster, resulting in federal arrest warrants. His refusal to pay federal taxes causes the IRS to seize his plane in November 1992, his Bozeman, Montana home, and other equipment, and sell it all to pay his $389,000 delinquent tax bill, dating back to the 1970s. Thoroughly radicalized, Schweitzer meets Rodney Owen Skurdal, another legal manipulator. Skurdal is an ex-Marine and Posse Comitatus advocate who, during litigation of a worker’s compensation suit in the 1980s, tells the judge that the federal government lacks the authority to print paper money and demands, fruitlessly, to be paid his compensation in gold bullion. One Wyoming newspaper claims that Skurdal’s extremism begins after he suffers a fractured skull in 1983, the source of the compensation claim; Skurdal’s former wife says after the injury that Skurdal refuses to use a Social Security number or driver’s license. Skurdal, like many in the Posse, is an adherent to the virulently racist Christian Identity belief system (see 1960s and After), and in court filings claims non-whites are “beasts,” and Jews “the children of Satan.” Skurdal routinely intertwines Identity, Posse Comitatus, Biblical, and Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) tenets in his court filings (see 1994). In 1993, the IRS seizes his farm near Roundup, Montana, for back taxes; Skurdal continues to occupy the farm and no local official dares to evict him. In late 1994, Skurdal invites Schweitzer to move in with him; they are joined by Daniel Petersen in early 1995. The three become the nucleus of what will become the Montana Freemen. Skurdal’s farm becomes a headquarters for the nascent organization, with computers, fax machines, laser printers, and satellite dishes going round the clock. The inhabitants post a sign on the edge of the property, reading: “Do Not Enter Private Land of the Sovereign.… The right of Personal Liberty is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed to every citizen, and any unlawful interference with it may be resisted.” Local authorities want to curb the group, but do not want to risk violence and bloodshed. Musselshell County Sheriff G. Paul Smith says: “These people want to be martyrs. I don’t know how far they are willing to carry that.” Moreover, Smith and his small sheriff’s department are outnammed and outgunned. [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996]

Gordon Kahl. [Source: Anti-Defamation League]Posse Comitatus (see 1969 and 1983) member and anti-tax protester Gordon Kahl (see 1967 - 1973) and three Posse members gun down two US marshals who are attempting to arrest Kahl in a confrontation near Medina, North Dakota. The two marshals are among a group of six attempting to apprehend Kahl in a 1977 income tax case after he violated his probation by refusing to file a tax return (see 1975 - 1981); he has been a fugitive since 1981. Initial Attempts to Negotiate Peaceful Surrender Fail - In that year, Kahl refused to turn himself over to North Dakota federal marshal Harold “Bud” Warren after a number of telephone conversations in which Kahl insisted that he had been “illegally” convicted by the “forces of Satan.” Warren decided that Kahl’s probation violation was “hardly a serious crime” and decided not to pursue it, partially because he knew Kahl was a crack shot and feared he would lose officers in any attempt to arrest him. Increasing Involvement in Posse Activities - Kahl moved to Arkansas, where he visited the compound of the white supremacist Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord organization. A member of that organization, Leonard Ginter, hid Kahl from federal authorities. Kahl’s wife, under tremendous stress from the situation, tried and failed to negotiate a settlement with the IRS, resulting in her excoriation by her 23-year-old son Yorie, who accused her of cooperating with “the tithing collectors of the Jewish-Masonic Synogogue [sic] of Satan.” Kahl became more and more involved in Posse Comitatus activities, traveling to Kansas and Colorado. Return to North Dakota, Confrontation with Police - In January 1983 he and Yorie Kahl returned to North Dakota with the intention of setting up a Posse “township” near Medina, which they envisioned as being free from state and government control. Kahl’s station wagon is observed by Stutsman County deputy sheriff Bradley Kapp, who informs the Marshal Service in Bismarck. Warren’s successor, Kenneth Muir, authorizes Kahl’s arrest, and drives to Medina with Deputy Marshal Carl Wigglesworth to join two other deputy marshals, Robert Cheshire Jr. and James Hopson Jr. Kapp is spotted by some of his Posse colleagues, who quickly join him in planning to forcibly resist any arrest attempt. Reportedly, they receive the assistance of Medina police chief Darrell Graf, who is allegedly a Posse sympathizer. Kahl, Yorie Kahl, and Posse members David Broer and Scott Faul flee Medina in two Posse members’ cars, but the ruse only briefly confuses the marshals, and two police cars with flashing lights quickly apprehend Kahl and Broer. One car is driven by deputy police chief Steve Schnabel; the other by Muir and Wigglesworth. Kapp, Cheshire, and Hopson are close behind in a third vehicle. Kahl and Broer turn off the road into a driveway, and Kahl, armed with a modified Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle, prepares to open fire on the approaching police officers. The others leap out of their cars and, armed with Mini-14s, take up positions in a ditch. When the marshals arrive moments later, they get out of their cars and order the Posse members to lay down their weapons. One of the Posse members opens fire, and in the 30-second volley that ensues, Kahl and his fellow Posse members lay down a deadly fire that inflicts heavy damage on the outgunned marshals. Kahl wounds Kapp and Schnabel with two shots, and kills Muir with a shot to the heart. Muir fires off a single shot that gravely wounds Yorie. Hopson is struck in the head by a ricocheting bullet that causes permanent brain damage. Rifle fire from Yorie and Faul fatally wounds Cheshire. Kapp, severely injured, manages to shoot Yorie three more times, then takes cover. Kahl executes the dying Cheshire with a shot to the head, then points his rifle at the downed Schnabel, but chooses not to kill him, instead taking his police cruiser and fleeing the scene. He takes the injured Yorie to a Posse member, Dr. Clarence Martin; Yorie and Kahl’s wife Joan are arrested later that night at the hospital, and Yorie tells FBI agents some details of the confrontation. Faul, Broer, and Posse member Vernon Wegner are also arrested; Faul refuses to tell police or FBI investigators where Kahl might have fled to. Police find Schnabel’s abandoned police cruiser. Two days later, police surround Kahl’s farmhouse and bombard it with tear gas, only to find it abandoned. They do find a store of weapons and ammunition, and a collection of Posse Comitatus pamphlets and related documents. Kahl’s family insists that law enforcement efforts to apprehend Kahl are unfair, and complain that he is being “hunted like a dog.” Joan Kahl appears on television and tearfully pleads with her husband to surrender, to no avail. FBI and US Marshals descend on the local Posse Comitatus headquarters, and offer a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest, but Kahl has disappeared into the shadows of the far-right militia network. [Ian Geldard, 2/19/1995; Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 194-200; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2011] Kahl’s murder of the marshals will be used by Posse Comitatus leader James Wickstrom to promote the anti-tax movement (see February 14-21, 1983). Four months later, Kahl will die in a bloody standoff with police officers in Arkansas (see March 13 - June 3, 1983).

Gordon Kahl, an anti-tax protester, Posse Comitatus member (see 1967 - 1973 and 1975 - 1981), and federal fugitive who killed two US Marshals in a February shootout in North Dakota (see February 13, 1983 and After), arrives at a farm in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The farm owner, Arthur Russell, is a member of another white supremacist organization, the Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord (CSA), and willingly hides Kahl, who is facing a second warrant for his arrest issued March 11. Kahl spends two months hiding at Russell’s farmhouse, studying the Bible, watching television, and spending time with Russell’s daughter Karen. While Kahl is in hiding, his family and colleagues in the Posse who were involved in the shootout are tried in May 1983; his son Yorie Kahl and colleague Scott Faul are convicted of second-degree murder and six other related charges; David Broer is convicted of conspiracy and of harboring a fugitive; and his wife Joan Kahl is acquitted of conspiracy and harboring a fugitive. FBI Learns of Kahl's Whereabouts - In late May, after the convictions, Kahl leaves the Russell farm with his CSA friend Leonard Ginter and Ginter’s wife Norma. Ginter, an unemployed carpenter, belongs to a small anti-government group called Americans for Constitutional Enforcement, but is not too ideologically rigid not to accept food stamps for himself and his wife. Kahl and the Ginters drive to Smithville, Arkansas, a tiny Ozark town where the Ginters have a concrete house with a vegetable patch and a chicken pen. After Kahl leaves, Karen Russell calls the FBI and informs them of his whereabouts. Final Confrontation - On June 3, FBI agent James Blasingame organizes a group of US Marshals and local lawmen at the Lawrence County courthouse to plan how best to apprehend Kahl and the Ginters. Twenty-eight law enforcement officials, including 15 US Marshals, six FBI agents, three state police officers, and four county lawmen descend on the Ginter home. While en route, they encounter Ginter, driving away from the house in a car with a rifle in the backseat; he has a cocked and loaded pistol in his lap. Ginter is apprehended without incident, but lies to the police, saying Kahl is not at the house. Unfortunately, the officials believe his story. At the officials’ request, Ginter drives back to the house, with five officials behind. Ginter parks his car, as do the officials; Ginter gets out and shouts: “Norma, come out. The FBI wants to talk to you.” He emphasizes the word “FBI” as loudly as possible, alerting Kahl to their presence. Norma Ginter comes out and is escorted away. Lawrence County Sheriff Gene Matthews, departing from the plan, enters the house through a utility room off the garage, with US Marshal James Hall and Arkansas State Police investigator Ed Fitzpatrick following him. Kahl is waiting in the kitchen, armed with a formidable Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle. When Matthews enters the kitchen, the two men see each other and open fire simultaneously; Kahl wounds Matthews fatally with two shots to the chest and Matthews kills Kahl with a bullet to the head. Hall and Fitzpatrick, unsure of what has happened, begin firing wildly, striking Matthews with buckshot. Matthews manages to get to a police cruiser before collapsing, and gasps, “I got him.” But the other officials are unsure if Kahl is actually dead, and if others may be in the house as well. They open fire on the house and let loose a barrage of tear gas. They then set the house afire with a can of diesel fuel; the fire ignites several thousand rounds of ammunition stored inside the house and the house is all but gutted by the conflagration. Eventually, officials are able to enter the house and find what remains of Kahl’s body in the kitchen. Posse Comitatus leader William Potter Gale, asked by a reporter about Kahl’s death, says that Kahl was murdered for helping farmers and belonging to the group. Another Posse member, Richard Wayne Snell, will later claim that Matthews had been killed by FBI agents after interrupting them during their torture of Kahl. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 217-220; Anti-Defamation League, 2011]Episode Destabilizes Posse Comitatus - The Kahl episode receives national attention and helps destabilize the Posse Comitatus (see 1984). The media quickly learns of Kahl’s racist and anti-Semitic past, and reprints a letter he wrote the same night he killed the marshals and later sent to reporters. In his letter, Kahl announced that it was time to begin killing Jews: “We are engaged in a struggle to the death between the people of the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of Satan. We are a conquered and occupied nation; conquered and occupied by the Jews, and their hundreds or maybe thousands of front organizations doing their un-Godly work. They have two objectives in their goal of ruling the world. Destroy Christianity and the White race. Neither can be accomplished by itself, they stand or fall together.” In an attempt to exonerate his son and Faul, Kahl took credit for all the fatal shots. Kahl’s espousal of violence and anti-Semitism causes a backlash when some Posse Comitatus members attempt to portray him as a martyr. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 217-220]

Robert Jay Mathews, a white supremacist and activist (see 1980-1982), gives a speech at the National Alliance convention in Arlington, Virginia, reporting on his efforts to recruit farmers and ranchers into the “white racialist” movement (see 1969). Mathews receives the only standing ovation of the convention. He also renews his acquaintance with Thomas Martinez, a former Ku Klux Klansman from Philadelphia, and becomes close friends with him. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Mathews will go on to found The Order, one of the most violent anti-government organizations in modern US history (see Late September 1983). He will die during a 1984 standoff with FBI agents (see December 8, 1984).

The logo of ‘The Order.’ [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Robert Jay Mathews, a white supremacist and activist (see 1980-1982 and September 1983), invites eight men to his property in Metaline Falls, Washington: neighbor and best friend Kenneth Loft; former Ku Klux Klansman David Edan Lane; Daniel Bauer; Denver Daw Parmenter; Randolph George Duey and Bruce Carroll Pierce of the Aryan Nations; and National Alliance recruits Richard Harold Kemp and William Soderquist. Mathews and his eight guests found a new organization called, variously, “The Order,” “The Silent Brotherhood” or “Bruder Schweigen,” and “The White American Bastion.” The group uses the story depicted in the novel The Turner Diaries as its framework, determining to use violence and crime to destabilize the US government and establish a whites-only society. In the novel, “The Organization” finances its revolution by armed robberies, counterfeiting, and other crimes designed to disrupt the US economy. Mathews decides his group will use the same plan. Mathews is also inspired by real crimes, such as a failed 1981 armored car heist by the Black Liberation Army. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 222-223; HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]

Members of the white separatist, anti-Semitic group Posse Comitatus (see 1969) begin to drift away from the group after federal and state authorities seize the “township” of Tigerton Dells, Wisconsin, which the group has created as part of its “breakaway” nation. The organization is also destabilized by negative media attention after one of its members, Gordon Kahl, killed two US marshals and was later killed himself in a violent confrontation with federal and state officials in Arkansas (see February 13, 1983 and After). Some of the Posse members will take up membership in other white supremacist Christian Identity (see 1960s and After) groups such as Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s). The organization will not entirely dissipate, but quickly loses influence and membership (from a height of some 50,000) to newer groups. [Ian Geldard, 2/19/1995; Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010]

Alan Berg. [Source: Denver Post]Alan Berg, a Jewish, progressive talk show host for Denver’s KOA 850 AM Radio, is gunned down in his driveway as he is stepping out of his car. The murder is carried out by members of the violent white-supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), a splinter group of the Aryan Nations white nationalist movement. Berg, who was described as often harsh and abrasive, regularly confronted right-wing and militia members on his show. Federal investigators learn that The Order’s “hit list” includes Berg, television producer Norman Lear, a Kansas federal judge, and Morris Dees, a civil rights lawyer and co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Radio producer Anath White later says that some of Berg’s last shows were particularly rancorous, involving confrontational exchanges with anti-Semitic members of the Christian Identity movement (see 1960s and After). “That got him on the list and got him moved up the list to be assassinated,” White will say. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006; Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007; Denver Post, 6/18/2009]Preparing for the Murder - Order leader Robert Jay Mathews had already sent a colleague to Denver to determine if Berg was a viable target (see May 17, 1984). The four members of the assassination team—Mathews, Bruce Pierce, David Lane, and Richard Scutari—assemble at a local Motel 6 to review their plans. Pierce, the assassin, has brought a .45 caliber Ingram MAC-10 submachine gun for the job. All four men begin to surveill Berg’s townhouse. Gunned Down - At 9:21 p.m., Berg drives his Volkswagen Beetle into his driveway. Lane, the driver, pulls up behind him. Mathews leaps out of the car and opens the rear door for Pierce, who jumps out and runs up the driveway. Berg exits his vehicle with a bag of groceries. Pierce immediately opens fire with his submachine gun, pumping either 12 or 13 bullets into Berg’s face and body before the gun jams. (Sources claim both figures of bullet wounds in Berg as accurate.) Pierce and Mathews get back into their car, rush back to the Motel 6, gather their belongings, and leave town. Three of the four members of the “hit squad” will soon be apprehended, charged, and convicted. Pierce is sentenced to 252 years in prison, including time for non-related robberies, and will die in prison in 2010; Lane is given 150 years, and will die in prison in 2007. Neither man is prosecuted for murder, as the evidence will be determined to be inconclusive; rather, they will be charged with violating Berg’s civil rights. Scutari, accused of serving as a lookout for Pierce, and Jean Craig, accused of collecting information on Berg for the murder, will both be acquitted of culpability in the case, but will be convicted of other unrelated crimes. Mathews will not be charged due to lack of evidence of his participation; months later, he will die in a confrontation with law enforcement officials (see December 8, 1984). [Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007; Denver Post, 6/18/2009; Denver Post, 8/17/2010] In sentencing Pierce to prison, Judge Richard Matsch will say of the murder, “The man [Berg] was killed for who he was, what he believed in, and what he said and did, and that crime strikes at the very core of the Constitution.” [Denver Post, 8/17/2010]Re-Enacting a Fictional Murder? - Some will come to believe that the assassins may have attempted to re-enact the fictional murder of a Jewish talk-show host depicted in The Turner Diaries (see 1978). [Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007; The Moderate Voice, 11/30/2007]'Opening Shot ... of a Truly Revolutionary Radical Right' - Mark Potok of the SPLC will characterize Berg’s murder as an early event leading to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). “In a sense, it was one of the opening shots of a truly revolutionary radical right,” Potok will say, “perfectly willing to countenance the mass murder of American civilians for their cause.” [Denver Post, 6/18/2009] Berg’s ex-wife, Judith Berg, will travel around the country in the years after her ex-husband’s murder, speaking about what she calls the “disease and anatomy of hate,” a sickness that can infect people so strongly that they commit horrible crimes. In 2007, she will tell a reporter that Berg’s murder was a watershed event that inspired more hate-movement violence. “What happened to Alan in the grown-up world has reached into the youth culture,” she will say. “It opened the door to an acceptance of violence as a means of acting on hate.… While our backs are turned toward overseas, hate groups are having a heyday. People are very unhappy; they’re out of work and jobs are scarce. They’re ripe for joining extremist groups. We need to understand what happened to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” [Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007] White later says of Pierce, Lane, and their fellows: “It’s left me to wonder what makes somebody like this. I think these people didn’t have much opportunity in their lives and scapegoat. They blame others for not making it.” [Denver Post, 8/17/2010]

David Tate, one of two members of the now-defunct white supremacist group The Order to escape the government’s massive prosecution of its members (see Late December 1984 - April 1985), is stopped by two Missouri state troopers conducting random vehicle and license checks. He is trying to flee to a Christian Identity (see 1960s and After) survivalist compound called the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA). Tate opens fire on the two officers with a MAC-10 submachine gun, killing one and critically wounding the other. He is captured five days later hiding in a city park in Arkansas. He will be convicted of assault and murder, and sentenced to life without parole. Federal authorities will use the Tate incident to arrest the CSA leadership (see 1983); the organization will soon fold. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005; HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]

Radical Muslim leader Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman obtains his first US visa via the CIA. A State Department official will later discover this was the first of six US visas given to him between 1986 and 1990. All are approved by CIA agents acting as consular officers at US embassies in Sudan and Egypt. “The CIA officers claimed they didn’t know the sheikh was one of the most notorious political figures in the Middle East and a militant on the State Department’s list of undesirables.” But one top New York investigator will later say, “Left with the choice between pleading stupidity or else admitting deceit, the CIA went with stupidity.” [Boston Globe, 2/3/1995; New York Magazine, 3/17/1995] Abdul-Rahman uses the visas to attend conferences of Islamic students in the US. Then he visits Pakistan, where he preaches at Peshawar, visits the Saudi embassy in Islamabad, and is “lionized at receptions heavily attended by Americans.” He plays a prominent role in recruiting mujaheddin fighters to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. [Kepel, 2002, pp. 300] In 1989, Abdul-Rahman is arrested in Egypt and held under very closely guarded house arrest, but he manages to escape one year later, possibly by being smuggled out of his house in a washing machine. The CIA gives him another US visa and he moves to the US (see July 1990). [New York Times, 1/8/1995] Journalist Simon Reeve will claim in his 1999 book The New Jackals that, “The CIA, it is now clear, arranged the visa[s] to try and befriend the Sheikh in advance of a possible armed fundamentalist revolution in Egypt.” According to a retired CIA official, the CIA recalled mistakes made with the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and were trying to win Abdul-Rahman’s trust. [Reeve, 1999, pp. 60]

A young Timothy McVeigh, wearing quasi-military garb. [Source: ForbiddenTruth (.com)]Timothy McVeigh, a distant, solitary young man in Pendleton, New York, takes a job as a security guard with an armored car company after graduating from Starpoint High School in 1986. (Some sources will inaccurately give his home town as nearby Lockport, New York; he did live there for a time as a child.) He grew up as an outgoing and easygoing young man, but began to withdraw into himself after his mother began leaving home (and having extramarital affairs) in 1977. McVeigh began retreating into himself even more after his parents separated in 1984 and his mother left for Florida with his two sisters. He received his first rifle, a .22 caliber gift from his gun-collector grandfather, when he was 13, and was immediately fascinated with the weapon, though he never became interested in hunting, as so many others in the area were (McVeigh always displayed a strong empathy towards animals). He joined the National Rifle Association in 1985. In high school, he told counselors he wanted to be a gun shop owner; though he earned a Regents Scholarship upon graduating, he only spent a few months at a nearby business college before deciding further schooling was not for him. McVeigh has already begun to turn his father’s home into a survivalist compound, stockpiling water, gunpowder, and other items in the basement and amassing a collection of magazines like Guns & Ammo and SCOPE Minuteman, a local publication distributed by a Niagara County gun advocacy organization. His father, William “Bill” McVeigh, will later explain: “I guess he thought that someday a nuclear attack or something was going to happen. That was my feeling. You know, he was ready for anything.” [New York Times, 5/4/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 44, 49, 65-66, 70; Serrano, 1998, pp. 11-20; Douglas O. Linder, 2006]First Exposure to African-Americans, Survivalism - McVeigh, a 19-year-old sometimes called by the disparaging nickname “Noodle” who is unable to connect with women on almost any level due to his shyness, works for a firm currently called Burke Armor Inc., which will later rename itself as Armored Services of America, though he has a considerable amount of expertise with computers and conceivably could have landed a job in that field. McVeigh works out of a depot in Cheektowaga, near Buffalo, mostly delivering money to and from banks and stores, quickly earning a reputation as a reliable, hardworking employee. He works for eight months with a partner, Jeff Camp. This job gives him his first opportunity to work closely with African-Americans; the region of upstate New York he resides in is almost devoid of African-Americans, and the area has long supported a large and active Ku Klux Klan chapter. McVeigh learns from some of his fellow employees about inner-city strife and other related racial and economic issues. Later, he will recall making special deliveries at the beginning and end of each month to check-cashing firms; sometimes he would have to wade through long lines of African-American welfare recipients, and on occasion would brandish his gun to get through the lines. He often drives by African-American homes and sees the residents sitting on their porches, one of the reasons he begins calling African-Americans “porch monkeys.” He also begins reading “survivalist” books such as The Turner Diaries (see 1978), The Anarchist’s Cookbook, and The Poor Man’s James Bond. Discomfits Co-Workers with Militia-Style Appearance - Several months into the job, as Camp will recall, McVeigh begins coming to work “looking like Rambo.” McVeigh has frequently expressed an interest in guns—some sources say he calls guns “the great equalizer[s]”—and has a licensed handgun for his job along with other weapons, including an AR-15 assault rifle. On one particular morning, he comes in with a sawed-off shotgun and ammunition bandoliers slung in an “X” over his chest, apparently as a joke meant to surprise and discomfit his colleagues. “It looked like World War III,” Camp will recall. McVeigh’s supervisor refuses to let McVeigh go out on the truck, angering him. Camp will later recall: “He used to bring in two or three guns that he carried all the time. He had a .45 and a .38. He had a Desert Eagle [pistol]. That thing was huge.” (McVeigh will later sell the Desert Eagle, calling it “unreliable.”) McVeigh, Camp will continue, is “intense.… He ate a lot. I don’t know if it was nervousness. Sometimes he could be quiet. Some days he was hyper, some days he wouldn’t say a word.” Buys Property for Shooting Range - After getting his first gun permit, McVeigh buys 10 acres of wooded property north of Olean, New York, with a partner, David Darlak, and the two use it as a shooting range. As teenagers, he and Darlak formed their version of a “survivalist group” after watching movies such as The Day After, a television movie about the aftermath of a nuclear strike in Kansas. A neighbor, Robert Morgan, later recalls his father calling the police to complain about the incessant gunfire. “My dad turned him in,” Morgan will recall. “One day it sounded like a war out there. Sometimes he’d come down during the week, sometimes the weekend. He had on hunting clothes. Camouflage.” McVeigh continues his shooting activities even after Darlak loses interest. Joins US Army - On May 24, 1988, spurred by his partner Darlak, he joins the Army (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990). [New York Times, 5/4/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 54-57, 72, 82; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 20-24; Douglas O. Linder, 2006]

Michael Springmann. [Source: Michael Springmann]Michael Springmann, head US consular official in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, later claims that during this period he is “repeatedly ordered… to issue [more than 100] visas to unqualified applicants.” He turns them down, but is repeatedly overruled by superiors. [BBC, 11/6/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 11/25/2001] In one case, two Pakistanis apply for visas to attend a trade show in the US, but they are unable to name the trade show or city in which it will be held. When Springmann denies them a visa, he gets “an almost immediate call from a CIA case officer, hidden in the commercial section [of the consulate], that I should reverse myself and grant these guys a visa.” Springmann refuses, but the decision is reversed by the chief of the consular section. Springmann realizes that even the ambassador, Walter Cutler, is aware of the situation, which becomes “more brazen and blatant” as time goes on. On one occasion Springmann is even told, “If you want a job in the State Department in future, you will change your mind.” [CBC Radio One, 7/3/2002; Trento, 2005, pp. 344-6] Springmann loudly complains to numerous government offices, but no action is taken. He is fired and his files on these applicants are destroyed. He later learns that recruits from many countries fighting for bin Laden against Russia in Afghanistan were funneled through the Jeddah office to get visas to come to the US, where the recruits would travel to train for the Afghan war. According to Springmann, the Jeddah consulate was run by the CIA and staffed almost entirely by intelligence agents. This visa system may have continued at least through 9/11, and 11 of the 19 9/11 hijackers received their visas through Jeddah (see November 2, 1997-June 20, 2001), possibly as part of this program (see October 9, 2002 and October 21, 2002). [BBC, 11/6/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 11/25/2001; CBC Radio One, 7/3/2002; Associated Press, 7/17/2002 ; Fox News, 7/18/2002]

The flag of the Branch Davidians. [Source: Wikimedia]Vernon Wayne Howell, a Texas musician and a member of the Branch Davidian sect of Seventh-day Adventists, forcibly installs himself as the leader of the Branch Davidian sect near Waco, Texas. Howell is a self-described loner and dyslexic who dropped out of high school, but taught himself the Bible, memorizing most of it by age 12. He was expelled from the Church of Seventh-day Adventists in 1979 for being a bad influence on the church’s young people, and in 1981 joined the Waco group of Branch Davidians in its 77-acre compound, “Mount Carmel,” on the outskirts of the city. Howell had an affair with the leader of the group, self-described prophetess Lois Roden, some 30 years older than himself. Power Struggle - After Roden died, Howell began a lengthy struggle for control of the group with Roden’s son George Roden. In late 1987, Roden digs up the body of a member, Anna Hughes, and issues a challenge to Howell: the one who could raise her from the dead is the one to lead the community. Instead, Howell asks the local authorities to charge Roden with abusing a corpse. On November 3, Howell returns to the Mt. Carmel compound with seven male followers, all dressed in camouflage and bearing assault rifles, hunting rifles, shotguns, and ammunition. The two groups engage in a gunfight; during the exchange, Roden is shot in the chest and hands. Howell and his followers will be tried for attempted murder, but the others will be acquitted and Howell’s trial will end in a mistrial. In 1989, Roden will try to murder a man with an axe, and will be committed to a mental instutition for the rest of his life. By 1990, Howell will have established himself as the leader of the Waco Branch Davidians, and will legally change his name to David Koresh, explaining that he believes he is now the head of the Biblical House of David. Koresh is a Hebrew translation of “Cyrus,” the Persian king who allowed the Jews held captive in Babylon to return to Israel. [New York Times, 3/1/1993; Waco Tribune-Herald, 3/3/1993; Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995]Adventists Join Koresh at Waco Compound - Seventh-day Adventists and others from around the world will journey to Waco to join the Davidians, who all told number somewhere around 75. According to a multi-part series by the Waco Tribune-Herald based on the recollections and observations of former members (see February 27 - March 3, 1993), the Davidians gather at the compound to “await the end of the world.” The members believe that Koresh alone can open the so-called “Seven Seals” of Biblical prophecy, which will trigger the Apocalypse, destroy the world as we know it, and propel Koresh and his followers into heaven. The compound is heavily armed. [Waco Tribune-Herald, 3/3/1993] Most of the Davidians live communally in an L-shaped compound of beige buildings. A few of the more elderly members live in a trailer four miles from the main compound. The trailer has more amenities than the main building, which lacks central heating and indoor plumbing. The men live separately from the women and children. Members rise early, breakfasting together in a large cafeteria and then going to work. Some of the men have jobs in the Waco area, and many stay, working on what sect member Paul Fatta will describe as a three-year renovation of the compound but what law enforcement officials say is a network of tunnels and bunkers. The children are home-schooled by the women. [New York Times, 3/6/1993]Former Member: Koresh Brought Apocalyptic Mindset, Violence to Group - According to Davidian David Bunds, who will later leave the group, Koresh, or Howells as he is known, was something of a destabilizing factor from the time of his arrival. Bunds will later say: “We were a very reserved, very conservative group. There were no emotional displays. Then along came Vernon Howell. I remember my father said one day, ‘Well, that guy sounds like he’s going to end up saying he’s a prophet the way he’s acting.’” Bunds will later say that while he was enthralled for a time by Koresh’s personality and his apocalyptic preaching, he became increasingly disturbed at his insistence on having multiple “wives,” his stockpiling of more and more weapons, and the increasingly violent methods of “discipline” being meted out to “disobedient” children and adults alike (adults, Bunds and other “defectors” will later say, are physically beaten by Koresh’s cadre of militantly loyal “Mighty Men”). Bunds will be forced out of the group after questioning Koresh’s Biblical interpretations, and for taking a sect member as his wife against Koresh’s wishes. [Conway and Siegelman, 1995, pp. 244-246]Federal Raid, Siege - The Waco Branch Davidians will kill four federal agents attempting to arrest Koresh on gun and sexual abuse charges (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993); most of them, including Koresh, will die in a fiery conflagration after a 51-day standoff (see April 19, 1993). After the February 1993 raid, Waco Chamber of Commerce president Jack Stewart will say: “The sad part about this group is that it has evolved from the peaceful, pastoral group that it started as in the 1930s. Only since this most recent leader have they begun to acquire some of the weaponry and attitudes that they have.” [New York Times, 3/1/1993]

Richard Butler, the head of the white separatist and neo-Nazi organization Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s), is indicted, along with 12 of his followers and fellow racists, by a federal grand jury for seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government by violence, conspiring to kill federal officials, and transporting stolen money across state lines. The sedition was allegedly developed at a 1983 Aryan Nations Congress meeting (see 1981 and After). The case is tried in Fort Smith, Arkansas, before an all-white jury. The goverment is unable to prove the case, and Butler and his fellow defendants are all acquitted. The judge refuses to accept the jury’s statement that it is deadlocked on two counts, a ruling that leads to the blanket acquittals. Other white supremacists acquitted in the trial are Louis Beam (see February 1992), Richard Wayne Snell (see 9:00 p.m. April 19, 1995), and Robert Miles. US Attorney J. Michael Fitzhugh says he believes the prosecution proved its case, but “we accept the verdict of the jury.” Six of the defendants are serving prison terms for other crimes. The prosecution says Butler, Beam, Miles, and the other 10 defendants had robbed banks and armored trucks of $4.1 million, including about $1 million that still is missing. The defense countered that the prosecution’s case was based on conspiracy theories given by the prosecution’s chief witness, James Ellison, an Arkansas white supremacist serving 20 years for racketeering. During the proceedings, Butler undergoes quadruple bypass surgery and a second surgery to unblock his carotid artery, all at government expense. [Associated Press, 4/8/1998; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010] Some time after the trial, one of the jurors marries one of the defendants, David McGuire. [Kaplan, 2000, pp. 19]

Entrance to Fort Riley, Kansas. [Source: US Military (.com)]Terry Nichols, a 33-year-old Michigan farmer and house husband described as “aimless” by his wife Lana, joins the US Army in Detroit. He is the oldest recruit in his platoon and his fellow recruits call him “Grandpa.” During basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, Nichols meets fellow recruits Timothy McVeigh (see 1987-1988), who joined the Army in Buffalo, New York, and Arizona native Michael Fortier. All three share an interest in survivalism, guns, and hating the government, particularly Nichols and McVeigh; unit member Robin Littleton later recalls, “Terry and Tim in boot camp went together like magnets.” For McVeigh, Nichols is like the older brother he never had; for Nichols, he enjoys taking McVeigh under his wing. Nichols also tells McVeigh about using ammonium nitrate to make explosives he and his family used to blow up tree stumps on the farm. The three are members of what the Army calls a “Cohort,” or Cohesion Operation Readiness and Training unit, which generally keeps soldiers together in the same unit from boot camp all the way through final deployment. It is in the Army that McVeigh and Nichols become enamored of the novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978), which depicts a United States racially “cleansed” of minorities and other “undesirables” (McVeigh is already familiar with the novel—see 1987-1988). All three are sent to the 11 Bravo Infantry division in Fort Riley, Kansas, where they are finally separated into different companies; McVeigh goes to tank school, where he learns to operate a Bradley fighting vehicle as well as becoming an outstanding marksman. [New York Times, 5/4/1995; New York Times, 5/28/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 91-95; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 30; Nicole Nichols, 2003] McVeigh later says he joined the Army because he was disillusioned with the “I am better than you because I have more money” mindset some people have, and because he was taken with the Army’s advertisement that claimed, “We do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day.” [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996] Fellow unit member Specialist Ted Thorne will later recall: “Tim and I both considered ourselves career soldiers. We were going to stay in for the 20-plus years, hopefully make sergeant major. It was the big picture of retirement.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 31]Nichols Leaves Army, Tells of Plans to Form 'Own Military Organization' - In the spring of 1989, Nichols, who planned on making a career of military service, leaves the Army due to issues with an impending divorce and child care, but his friendship with McVeigh persists. Fellow soldier Glen Edwards will later say that he found Nichols’s choice to serve in the Army unusual, considering his virulent hatred of the US government: “He said the government made it impossible for him to make a living as a farmer. I thought it strange that a 32-year-old man would be complaining about the government, yet was now employed by the government. Nichols told me he signed up to pull his 20 years and get a retirement pension.” Before Nichols leaves, he tells Edwards that he has plans for the future, and Edwards is welcome to join in. Edwards will later recall, “He told me he would be coming back to Fort Riley to start his own military organization” with McVeigh and Fortier. “He said he could get any kind of weapon and any equipment he wanted. I can’t remember the name of his organization, but he seemed pretty serious about it.” [New York Times, 5/28/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 96, 101]McVeigh Continues Army Career, Described as 'Strange,' 'Racist,' but 'Perfect Soldier' - McVeigh does not leave the Army so quickly. He achieves the rank of sergeant and becomes something of a “model soldier.” He plans on becoming an Army Ranger. However, few get to know him well; only his closest friends, such as Nichols, know of his passion for firearms, his deep-seated racism, or his hatred for the government. McVeigh does not see Nichols during the rest of his Army stint, but keeps in touch through letters and phone calls. Friends and fellow soldiers will describe McVeigh as a man who attempts to be the “perfect soldier,” but who becomes increasingly isolated during his Army career; the New York Times will describe him as “retreating into a spit-and-polish persona that did not admit nights away from the barracks or close friendships, even though he was in a ‘Cohort’ unit that kept nearly all the personnel together from basic training through discharge.” His friends and colleagues will recall him as being “strange and uncommunicative” and “coldly robotic,” and someone who often gives the least desirable assignments to African-American subordinates, calling them “inferior” and using racial slurs. An infantryman in McVeigh’s unit, Marion “Fritz” Curnutte, will later recall: “He played the military 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All of us thought it was silly. When they’d call for down time, we’d rest, and he’d throw on a ruck sack and walk around the post with it.” A fellow soldier, Todd Regier, will call McVeigh an exemplary soldier, saying: “As far as soldiering, he never did anything wrong. He was always on time. He never got into trouble. He was perfect. I thought he would stay in the Army all his life. He was always volunteering for stuff that the rest of us wouldn’t want to do, guard duties, classes on the weekend.” Sergeant Charles Johnson will later recall, “He was what we call high-speed and highly motivated.” McVeigh also subscribes to survivalist magazines and other right-wing publications, such as Guns & Ammo and his favorite, Soldier of Fortune (SoF), and keeps an arsenal of weapons in his home (see November 1991 - Summer 1992). Regier will later tell a reporter: “He was real different. Kind of cold. He wasn’t enemies with anyone. He was kind of almost like a robot. He never had a date when I knew him in the Army. I never saw him at a club. I never saw him drinking. He never had good friends. He was a robot. Everything was for a purpose.” [New York Times, 5/4/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 86; Serrano, 1998, pp. 30; Nicole Nichols, 2003] McVeigh is taken with the increasing number of anti-government articles and advertisements in SoF, particularly the ones warning about what it calls the impending government imposition of martial law and tyranny, and those telling readers how to build bombs and other items to use in “defending” themselves from government aggression. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 27-28] McVeigh is not entirely “by the book”; he knows his friend Michael Fortier is doing drugs, but does not report him to their superior officers. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996] McVeigh is promoted to sergeant faster than his colleagues; this is when he begins assigning the undesirable tasks to the four or five black specialists in the group, tasks that would normally be performed by privates. “It was well known, pretty much throughout the platoon, that he was making the black specialists do that work,” Regier will recall. “He was a racist. When he talked he’d mention those words, like n_gger. You pretty much knew he was a racist.” The black soldiers complain to a company commander, earning McVeigh a reprimand. Sergeant Anthony Thigpen will later confirm Regier’s account, adding that McVeigh generally refuses to socialize with African-Americans, and only reluctantly takes part in company functions that include non-whites. Captain Terry Guild will later say McVeigh’s entire company has problems with racial polarization, “[a]nd his platoon had some of the most serious race problems. It was pretty bad.” In April 1989, McVeigh is sent to Germany for two weeks for a military “change-up program.” While there, he is awarded the German equivalent of the expert infantryman’s badge. In November 1989, he goes home for Thanksgiving with Fortier, and meets Fortier’s mother Irene. In late 1990, McVeigh signs a four-year reenlistment agreement with the Army. [New York Times, 5/4/1995]McVeigh Goes on to Serve in Persian Gulf War - McVeigh will serve two tours of duty in the Persian Gulf War, serving honorably and winning medals for his service (see January - March 1991 and After). Nichols and McVeigh will later be convicted of planning and executing the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995).

James Nichols, a Michigan farmer, anti-government white separatist, and the brother of Terry Nichols (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990), formulates a plan to use a “megabomb” to destroy an Oklahoma City federal building; an unnamed FBI informant will later tell the FBI that James Nichols specifically indicates the Murrah Federal Building. Nichols, who says he is upset over the US’s “role” in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, shares the plan with the informant, who will swear to the information in 1995, after James’s brother Terry Nichols is arrested for helping destroy the Murrah Building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). “[James] Nichols… made a specific reference to a federal building in Oklahoma City and began looking through the toolshed and workbench for a newspaper clipping depicting the Oklahoma City building,” the informant will say, according to an FBI affidavit. Nichols is unable to find the newspaper clipping, the informant will say, and instead draws a diagram remarkably similar to the Murrah Building. Nichols “later located a newspaper article containing a reference to the Federal Building in Oklahoma City and showed it” to the informer, the affidavit says. The informer is a regular visitor to the Nichols farm. [New York Times, 6/13/1995; Nicole Nichols, 2003] James Nichols routinely stamps US currency with red ink in a protest against the government, and calls his neighbors “sheeple” for obeying authority “like livestock.” A neighbor, Dan Stomber, will recall Nichols criticizing him and others for using drivers’ licences and Social Security cards, and for voting and paying taxes. “He said we were all puppets and sheeple,” Stomber will tell a reporter. “That was the first time I ever heard that word.” Stomber will not recall Nichols discussing any plans to bomb any federal buildings. [New York Times, 4/24/1995] After the Oklahoma City bombing, a friend of Nichols, an Indiana seed dealer named Dave Shafer, will tell authorities that Nichols showed him a diagram of a building remarkably similar to the Murrah Building, still under construction at the time, and said that building would be an excellent target. Shafer will say that he thought Nichols was joking. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 110] It is possible that Shafer and the unnamed FBI informant are the same person. Five years ago, a group of white supremacists had conceived of a plan to destroy the Murrah Building (see 1983).

Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal (see February 1989), is convicted of three counts of falsifying and destroying documents (see November 21-25, 1986 and March 16, 1988), of obstructing a Congressional investigation, and of illegally receiving a gift of a security fence around his home. He is acquitted of nine other counts. Though facing up to ten years in prison and a $750,000 fine, North receives an extremely lenient sentence: three years’ suspended, two years’ probation, community service, and a $150,000 fine. He also has his Marine service pension suspended. During the trial, North admits he lied repeatedly to Congress during his testimony (see July 7-10, 1987), but says that his superiors, including National Security Adviser John Poindexter, ordered him to lie under oath. North contends that he was made a scapegoat for the Reagan administration. “I knew it wasn’t right not to tell the truth about these things,” he says, “but I didn’t think it was unlawful.” US District Court Judge Gerhard Gesell calls North a “low-ranking subordinate who was carrying out the instructions of a few cynical superiors,” and says to North: “I believe you still lack understanding of how the public service has been tarnished. Jail would only harden your misconceptions.” North, who had been staunch in justifying his actions in the Iran-Contra hearings, now expresses remorse over his crimes, saying, “I recognize that I made many mistakes that resulted in my conviction of serious crimes… and I grieve every day.” North, who is a popular speaker with conservative organizations, can pay off his fine with six speaking engagements. Nevertheless, he says he will appeal his conviction. [BBC, 7/5/1989; New York Times, 9/17/1991] North’s conviction will indeed be overturned by an appeals court (see September 17, 1991).

Author Richard Kelly Hoskins, in his book Vigilantes of Christiandom, puts forth the concept of the “Phineas Priesthood.” Hoskins is a Christian Identity adherent (see 1960s and After). The idea comes from an obscure Biblical character, “Phinehas,” an Israelite who used a spear to kill a “race-mixing” fellow Israelite and the Midianite woman with whom he had had sexual relations. Hoskins concocts the idea of a “brotherhood” of “Phineas Priests,” self-professed “warriors” who would use extreme violence against “race-mixers,” gays, abortionists, and others. Over time, some “Phineas Priests” will commit bombings and bank robberies around Spokane, Washington (see October 8, 1996). In 2002, two Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s) splinter groups will openly adopt “Phineas Priest” names or symbols. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]

Marife Nichols in 1997. [Source: CNN]Terry Nichols, a shy Army veteran (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990) drifting through life as a single (see November 1988), underemployed father, does something that surprises everyone he knows: he leaves his home state of Michigan for the Philippines to marry a mail-order bride, 17-year-old Marife Torres, who lives with her parents in a small apartment above a lumberyard. Torres lives in Cebu City, where Nichols meets her. Her parents are leery of their daughter marrying an older man; in talking with Nichols, they learn that he wants a Filipino bride because he has been told “they stayed at home.” The two are married on November 20, 1990 at a Chinese restaurant in Cebu, and Nichols returns to Decker, Michigan, to begin the legal process necessary to bring Marife back to the US. [New York Times, 5/28/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 74-75] Nichols will later be convicted of conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). His connection to the Philippines will result in shadowy connections with suspected Islamist terrorists in that nation (see Late 1992-Early 1993 and Late 1994 and November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995).

A Web graphic opposing the ‘New World Order.’ [Source: Human Symbiose (.org)]In a speech discussing the post-Cold War world, President Bush outlines his vision of a “New World Order.” Bush says: “We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective—a new world order—can emerge: a new era—freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace.” The Southern Poverty Law Center will later write that many people, particularly white supremacists and separatists, take Bush’s phrase “as a slip of the tongue revealing secret plans to create a one-world government.” [Sweet Liberty, 9/11/1990; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001] In 1995, Michigan gun dealer and right-wing activist Frank Kieltyka will describe the “New World Order” to a Buffalo News reporter. According to Kieltyka, the “New World Order” is backed by the US government and led by, among other organizations, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). “We’re moving towards the Communists,” Kieltyka will warn. The belief in this “New World Order” will be emphasized in coming years in the militia movements and by right-wing publications such as The Spotlight, an openly racist, anti-government newsletter. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 157-158]

Timothy McVeigh during the time he served in the Army. [Source: Viceland (.com)]Sergeant Timothy McVeigh (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990) gives three months of military service in the Persian Gulf War as a gunner on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle before returning home; during his time there, he paints the name “Bad Company” on the side of the vehicle. “He was a good soldier,” Sergeant James Ives, who serves with McVeigh, will later recall. “If he was given a mission and a target, it’s gone.” [New York Times, 4/23/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 34; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; CNN, 2001] McVeigh earns a Bronze Star and the Army Commendation Medal while overseas, along with a number of citations and ribbons. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 25-26] Staff Sergeant Albert Warnement, the commander of McVeigh’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Kuwait, later recalls: “He was against the National Command Authority’s decision to go to war. McVeigh did not think the United States had any business or interest in Kuwait, but… he knew it was his duty to go where he was told, and he went.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 110]Experiences in Kuwait, Iraq - Fellow soldier Todd Regier later recalls that McVeigh was “definitely excited about going to Desert Storm. He was a perfect gunner. He was the best gunner we had.” McVeigh is part of a Bradley crew which spends its first few weeks sitting idly in the Saudi Arabian desert while American aircraft attack Iraqi defenses (see January 16, 1991 and After). Sergeant Anthony Thigpen later recalls that while the other soldiers play cards, write letters, and chat to relieve their boredom, McVeigh spends his time cleaning his weapons. The 2nd Battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment, McVeigh’s unit, is one of those that makes the initial drive into Kuwait when the invasion begins (see February 23, 1991 and After). McVeigh’s unit sees less intense action than some, and fellow soldier Roger L. Barnett will later recall that McVeigh shows little interest in shooting unarmed and defenseless Iraqis. At one point, McVeigh shoots an Iraqi soldier from some 2,000 yards away in the head, using the Bradley’s 25mm cannon. McVeigh wins a medal for the shot. He later recalls of the shooting: “His head just disappeared.… I saw everything above the shoulders disappear, like in a red mist.” He becomes angry when he learns that many Iraqis do not want to fight, and are equipped with inferior gear. According to an aunt, McVeigh is deeply disturbed about the fighting in Iraq. “When he came back, he seemed broken,” she later tells a reporter. “When we talked about it, he said it was terrible there. He was on the front line and had seen death and caused death. After the first [killing], it got easy.” While posted in Kuwait, McVeigh writes to a friend in the US that he hates Saddam Hussein: “Chickensh_t b_stard. Because of him, I killed a man who didn’t want to fight us, but was forced to.” However, a fellow soldier, Kerry Kling, later recalls McVeigh being proud of the shot that killed the Iraqi. Sergeant Royal L. Witcher, McVeigh’s assistant gunner on the Bradley, later recalls the soldiers’ dismay at their experiences with Iraqi soldiers. “I think it kind of shocked most of us,” he will say. “We had thought that they were our enemies, and then for us to encounter something like that with a mass of people giving up.” After the offensive, McVeigh’s unit is assigned to guard duty, and spends the remainder of the war relatively inactive. [New York Times, 5/4/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 113; Serrano, 1998, pp. 36-38; CNN, 12/17/2007] McVeigh will later recall being angry at the situation in Kuwait. In a letter to a reporter, he will write: “We were falsely hyped up [about the enemy]. And we get there and find out that they are normal like you and me. They hype you up to take those people out. They told us we were to defend Kuwait where the people had been raped and slaughtered (see October 10, 1990). War woke me up. War will open your eyes.” Of the Iraqi soldiers, he will write, “I felt the army brainwashed us to hate them.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 36-37]Withdraws from Special Forces Training - After returning to the US, McVeigh begins 21 days of Special Services training at Camp McCall, west of Fort Bragg, North Carolina (see October 1990). He is thrilled to be joining Special Forces, and is confident that he will pass the grueling physical and psychological assessments. However, he leaves the training at Camp McCall during the second day. He later tells people he withdraws because of a leg injury. Some military officials will say that preliminary psychological screening shows him to be unfit for Special Forces, leading some reporters to conclude that McVeigh was kicked out of training, but those conclusions are inaccurate: McVeigh’s screenings are not processed until long after he leaves, and his withdrawal is entirely voluntary. McVeigh later says that he begins training with a friend, Specialist Mitchell Whitmire (one source spells his name “Whitmyers,” apparently in error), days after returning from overseas duty. He will say that he is in poor physical condition, mentally and physically exhausted from his time in combat, and unready for the physical demands of Green Beret training. He does not accept an offer extended to him and other combat veterans to take some time off and try again at a later date. Instead, after two arduous days of physical workouts, McVeigh and Whitmire leave the training program before McVeigh’s assessments can be graded and reviewed. On his Statement of Voluntary Withdrawal, McVeigh writes, “I am not physically ready, and the rucksack march hurt more than it should.” Ives will recall McVeigh as being “extremely disappointed.” Thigpen later recalls: “Everybody knew he was highly upset. We never knew the reason why he didn’t make it. We figured, you don’t make it, you don’t make it. But he was definitely angry. He was upset, very upset.” Fellow soldier James Fox later tells a reporter that McVeigh’s withdrawal from Special Forces training was a defining moment for him, saying, “Whether he withdrew or was kicked out, it still was a failure and very easily he could externalize blame.” McVeigh then takes a 30-day leave to visit his sister Jennifer in Florida, and to spend some time in upstate New York, where he grew up (see 1987-1988). [New York Times, 4/23/1995; New York Times, 5/4/1995; New York Times, 7/5/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 115-119; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 41-42] Author Brandon M. Stickney later writes, “It was revealed in confidence to [me] that answers McVeigh gave on the psychological tests were apparently a bit off-center, not the answers of a man capable of long-term assignments with the exclusive and tight Special Forces.” Stickney will also write that McVeigh may be suffering from “Gulf War Syndrome,” a mysterious series of maladies apparently caused by exposure to toxic chemicals. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 117-118] In 1993, McVeigh will write a letter to his sister Jennifer giving a very different explanation of his reason for withdrawing from Special Forces tryouts (see October 20, 1993). After he returns from active duty, he begins displaying increasingly eccentric behavior (see March 1991 and After). McVeigh will go on to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995).

Sergeant Timothy McVeigh, a decorated Army gunner, returns from serving three months in Operation Desert Storm (see January - March 1991 and After). Disillusioned and discouraged by his experiences and his failure to succeed in Special Forces training, McVeigh returns to Fort Riley, Kansas, and begins displaying increasingly odd behavior, always carrying a weapon and talking incessantly about the constitutional right to bear arms. His friend and fellow soldier Bruce Williams later recalls that McVeigh is no longer the “Iron Mike” that he had known during training at Fort Benning. “I’d hang out and go to the parties and drink Budweiser,” Williams will recall. “Tim just stayed in his room playing Nintendo.” McVeigh rents a house off post with two fellow soldiers, Corporal John Edward Kelso and Sergeant Rick Cerney, in Herington, Kansas, some 40 miles from Fort Riley. Kelso later recalls he and Cerney trying to “josh with him” and get him to relax. “It was so easy to put him over the edge,” Kelso will recall. “He was so gullible, so vulnerable. He was so unbalanced about being tough. He was just kind of a nerd.” Sergeant Royal L. Witcher, McVeigh’s assistant gunner during active duty in Kuwait and Iraq, later recalls that McVeigh is uncomfortable sharing the house with the two, and persuades Witcher to let him move in with him instead. McVeigh moves into Witcher’s Herington home and immediately claims the larger of the two bedrooms, blocking the window with a camouflage poncho. Witcher later says he knew better than to enter McVeigh’s room. McVeigh keeps at least 10 guns in the house, Witcher will recall, saying: “They weren’t exposed, they were hidden. He had a couple in the kitchen, a couple in the living room under the couch. I think there was one in the bathroom, behind the towels. As you go up the steps there was a little ledge and he kept one in there, a .38 revolver.” McVeigh also keeps two guns in his car and a shotgun at the home of a sergeant who also lives off post. Witcher never asks why McVeigh keeps so many guns. “I don’t know if he was paranoid or what,” Witcher will recall. “Or maybe he had some friends that were after him. I don’t know.” On occasion, McVeigh sells guns to fellow soldiers. He cleans all of his weapons twice a week, and takes them to a lake to shoot every weekend. Witcher never recalls McVeigh having any dates. On a few occasions, the two have conversations. “He was a very racist person,” Witcher will recall. “He had very strong views against, like, political things, like that.” Witcher will say he does not share McVeigh’s racist views: “He pretty much knew my views and he didn’t talk too much about it around me.” McVeigh constantly complains about government intrusiveness, Witcher will recall, taking umbrage with items he reads in the newspaper on a daily basis. Witcher will remember McVeigh dropping out of the National Rifle Association (NRA) when that organization seems to be softening its stance on the banning of assault rifles. He begins spending more and more time poring over gun magazines, and spends more and more time in the pawnshops and gun dealerships in nearby Junction City. [New York Times, 4/23/1995; New York Times, 5/4/1995; New York Times, 7/5/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 42; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; CNN, 2001]Becomes Conspiracy-Minded, Involved with Extremist Groups - Ives will recall that after his failed attempt to join Special Forces, McVeigh becomes involved with extreme right-wing political groups off-post. Ives cannot identify the groups, but, he will say, “cults is what I call them.” Witcher will recall nothing of any such involvement. [New York Times, 4/23/1995; New York Times, 5/4/1995] Ives may be referring to a group of soldiers who begin meeting off-base to take action against gun control and government interference in their lives, a group McVeigh meets with at least once. His unit member Robin Littleton later recalls McVeigh becoming increasingly “bitter” and conspiracy-minded, reading books about the Kennedy assassination and becoming “convinced that the government was behind it all. He also started reading a lot of fiction, all of it to do with big business and the military planning on overthrowing the government. He started to rant on about the private armies that were springing up inside the federal government, and how the CIA and FBI were out of control.” At least one local girl, Catina Lawson, shows some interest in McVeigh, but his anti-Semitic rants and his professed admiration for Adolf Hitler quickly terminate her interest. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 120, 125-127] Warnement later recalls corresponding with McVeigh in 1992 and 1993, after Warnement is transferred to Germany. “He sent me a lot of newsletters and stuff from those groups he was involved in,” Warnement will recall. He will say that because the literature is so extremist, he throws it away rather than being caught with it. “There were newsletters from [militia leader] Bo Gritz’s group, some other odd newsletters, some from the Patriots; then he sent that videotape ‘The Big Lie’ about Waco. He seemed quite a bit different after the war than he’d been before.” The Branch Davidian debacle (see April 19, 1993) infuriates McVeigh, Warnement will recall (see April 19, 1993 and After). McVeigh is also angered by the use of Army units for drug-enforcement duties on the US-Mexican border, the deployment of infantry during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and UN command over US forces during fighting in Somalia. “He thought the federal government was getting too much power,” Warnement will recall. “He thought the ATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] was out of control. Then, of course, when Waco happened, he really felt the ATF was out of control.… He wasn’t happy about Somalia, that if we could put the United States under basically UN command and send them to Somalia to disarm their citizens, then why couldn’t they come do the same thing in the United States?… It had a kind of logic to it, but it really didn’t take into account the flip side of things. I kind of had the feeling that he might be headed for trouble because he was never the type of person to back down.” [New York Times, 7/5/1995] In February 1992, McVeigh sends Warnement a copy of The Turner Diaries, a racially inflammatory novel about a white supremacist genocide in the US (see 1978). He also includes a news article concerning a black militant politician. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]Accepts Early Discharge - Like many soldiers, McVeigh is encouraged to leave as part of the military’s postwar “drawdown.” McVeigh soon takes an early discharge and leaves the Army entirely (see November 1991 - Summer 1992). Sergeant James Hardesty, who served in Kuwait with McVeigh, later says that many soldiers such as McVeigh and himself felt like “discarded baggage.” [New York Times, 5/4/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 42-43] Fellow soldier Roger L. Barnett later recalls: “He wasn’t the same McVeigh. He didn’t go at things the way he normally did. It used to be, a superior commanding soldier would tell him to do something and he’d do it 110 percent. He didn’t have the same drive. He didn’t have his heart in the military anymore.” [New York Times, 7/5/1995]Future Oklahoma City Bomber - McVeigh will go on to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995).

Timothy McVeigh, a nascent white supremacist and survivalist (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990) who is in the process of taking “early termination” from the US Army after being denied a position in Special Forces (see January - March 1991 and After), moves back in with his father in Pendleton, New York. Initially, he joins a National Guard unit and tries unsuccessfully to join the US Marshals. He is formally discharged from the Army on December 31, 1991. His final psychological assessment from the Army shows him to be under extreme stress and experiencing a powerful sense of disillusionment with the federal government. In January 1992, he goes to work for Burns International Security Services in Buffalo after leaving the Guard (see June 1992), and quickly rises to the rank of inspector. [New York Times, 5/4/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 810; Serrano, 1998, pp. 48; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; CNN, 2001; CNN, 12/17/2007] (A New York Times report later says McVeigh leaves the Army in early 1992. A book about McVeigh, One of Ours, claims that McVeigh returns to Pendleton after leaving the Army around Christmas of 1991.) [New York Times, 5/4/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 44]Depressed, Suicidal, Detached, Enraged - Over time, McVeigh becomes increasingly depressed and reportedly considers suicide; friends and colleagues will describe him as deteriorating both mentally and physically, and, in the words of the New York Times, will describe him as “an increasingly unstable man who wavered between gloomy silences and a hair-trigger temper, who lost so much weight he seemed anorexic, and who could follow simple orders but could not handle pressure or take independent action.” Lynda Haner-Mele, a supervisor for Burns Security in Kenmore, New York, later recalls working with McVeigh at the Niagara Falls Convention Center. She remembers calling him “Timmy” and worrying about his weight loss. “He seemed almost lost, like he hadn’t really grown up yet,” she will say. She is unaware of his Army service, later recalling: “He didn’t really carry himself like he came out of the military. He didn’t stand tall with his shoulders back. He was kind of slumped over.… That guy did not have an expression 99 percent of the time. He was cold. He didn’t want to have to deal with people or pressure. Timmy was a good guard, always there prompt, clean, and neat. His only quirk was that he couldn’t deal with people. If someone didn’t cooperate with him, he would start yelling at them, become verbally aggressive. He could be set off easily. He was quiet, but it didn’t take much.” Increasingly Radicalized - McVeigh becomes increasingly radicalized, growing more disenchanted with the idea of a federal government and distressed about the possibility of a federal crackdown on gun ownership. He talks about the government forcibly confiscating the citizenry’s guns and enslaving citizens. He writes angry letters to newspapers and his congressman on subjects such as his objection to inhumane slaughterhouses and a proposed law prohibiting the possession of “noxious substances,” and warns against an impending dictatorship if action is not soon taken (see February 11, 1992). He urges friends to read a novel, The Turner Diaries (see 1978), which tells the story of a white supremacist revolt against the US government and the extermination of minorities, and gives copies to his friends and relatives. He begins acquiring an arsenal of guns, and sets up a generator and a store of canned food and potable water in his basement so that he would be self-sufficient in case of emergency. He applies to join the Ku Klux Klan, but decides against it because, he believes, the KKK is too focused on race and not enough on gun rights. The Times will later write: “While there was no firm evidence that Mr. McVeigh belonged to any organized right-wing paramilitary or survivalist groups, there was considerable evidence that he sympathized with and espoused their beliefs. He voiced their ideas in conversations, he wrote letters expressing them, he read their literature, and attended their meetings. And he lived, worked, and traded weapons in areas where the paramilitary groups enjoy considerable support, according to numerous interviews.” In the summer of 1992, McVeigh moves to Michigan to stay with his old Army friend Terry Nichols, telling friends he is leaving to find a “free state” in which to live. McVeigh’s and Nichols’s shared hatred of the federal government continues to grow. [New York Times, 5/4/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 810; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; CNN, 2001; Douglas O. Linder, 2006; CNN, 12/17/2007] Reportedly, McVeigh tells people that the Army has placed a computer chip in his buttocks to keep him under surveillance. [People, 5/8/1995] McVeigh’s fellow security guard, Carl Edward Lebron Jr., later recalls long conversations with McVeigh that center around “politics, secret societies, some religion and conspiracy theories,” UFOs, and government conspiracies to addict its citizens to illegal drugs. Lebron wonders if McVeigh himself might belong to a secret society of some sort, perhaps a Freemason sect. Lebron will recall McVeigh showing him Ku Klux Klan newsletters and gold coins, some minted in Canada. Lebron becomes worried enough about McVeigh’s apparent instability to tape-record some of their conversations, and keep notes of what McVeigh tells him. What seems to worry Lebron the most is McVeigh’s talk about stealing weapons from Army bases. In August, McVeigh quits his job at Burns, telling coworkers: “I got to get out of this place. It’s all liberals here.” Lebron bids him goodbye, saying, “Stay out of trouble,” to which McVeigh replies: “I can’t stay out of trouble. Trouble will find me.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 48-57] Law professor Douglas O. Linder will later speculate that McVeigh’s radicalization may have been triggered, and was certainly deepened, by the FBI’s raid on the Ruby Ridge compound of white supremacist Randy Weaver (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992). [Douglas O. Linder, 2006] McVeigh later tells his lawyers that during this time, he became increasingly stressed because of what he will call his “heightened sense of awareness of what the news was really saying.” He becomes increasingly obsessed with the news, raging at politicians for trying to blend politics and the military, and at the government for “strong-arming other countries and telling them what to do.” He becomes increasingly enraged by what he calls the increasing anti-gun sentiment in the US, and the “liberal mindset that all things in the world could be solved by discussion.” He learned in the military that most problems can best be solved by aggression, he will say, citing physical fights he had with fellow soldiers and angry confrontations with fellow security workers. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]Movements Cloudy - McVeigh’s movements are somewhat cloudy during this period. A New York Times report will say that McVeigh and Nichols may have lived together in Marion, Kansas, not Michigan, and McVeigh may have moved to Kingman, Arizona, during this time or sometime later. [New York Times, 4/23/1995]Future Oklahoma City Bomber - McVeigh will go on to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City, with Nichols’s aid (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Haner-Mele will have difficulty believing McVeigh orchestrated the bombing. “Timmy just wasn’t the type of person who could initiate action,” she will say. “He was very good if you said, ‘Tim, watch this door—don’t let anyone through.’ The Tim I knew couldn’t have masterminded something like this and carried it out himself. It would have had to have been someone who said: ‘Tim, this is what you do. You drive the truck.’” [New York Times, 5/4/1995] McVeigh’s cousin Kyle Kraus, who received a copy of The Turner Diaries from McVeigh, puts the book away until after the bombing, when he will reread some of it. Horrified, he will contact the FBI; the copy will become an exhibit in McVeigh’s criminal trial (see August 10, 1995). [Serrano, 1998, pp. 51]

The “Aryan Republican Army” (ARA) commits at least 22 bank robberies across America’s Midwest. The ARA is modeled after the violent white supremacist organization The Order (see Late September 1983), which had funded itself primarily through robbing armored trucks. For a time, the group’s headquarters is in Elohim City, Oklahoma (see 1973 and After). The ARA’s leaders claim to be dedicated to the “overthrow of the US government, the extermination of American Jews, and the establishment of an Aryan Republic” on the North American continent. Members are required to read the infamous Turner Diaries (see 1978), a novel depicting the overthrow of the US government by white separatists and the genocide of minorities. The robberies in all secure between $250,000 and $500,000 for the group. Robbery Spree - During the height of their robbery spree, ARA members target a bank about once a month, hitting banks and financial institutions in Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, and Kentucky. Sometimes the robbers dress like construction workers and flee in junk cars bought specifically for the escape. Sometimes they leave fake bombs and smoke grenades to delay pursuit; sometimes they speak in foreign languages to confuse authorities. In a December 1994 heist, one robber wears a Santa Claus suit, shouts “Ho, ho, ho!” to customers, and leaves a bomb tucked in a Santa hat. During a March 1995 robbery, the robbers leave a pipe bomb in an Easter basket. On one occasion the robbers leave a copy of the Declaration of Independence in the ashtray of an abandoned getaway car. Sometimes they wear caps or bandannas bearing the logos of the FBI or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF). On another occasion the robbers buy a getaway car, a Ford Fairlane, in the name of a retired FBI agent who had worked white supremacist cases in the Northwest; on the front seat of this car they leave an article about Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). When FBI agent Jim Nelson takes his speculations about the ARA public, group members send letters to several Midwestern newspapers mocking him and calling themselves the “Mid-Western Bank Bandits.” Arrests and Convictions - By late 1995, federal and state authorities will arrest most ARA members; ARA leader Peter Kevin Langan will be convicted on multiple charges of bank robbery, and another ARA leader, Richard Guthrie, will commit suicide in prison after cooperating with authorities. Michael William Brescia and Kevin William McCarthy also cooperate with authorities in return for reduced sentences. Others convicted include Mark William Thomas and Scott Stedeford. Promotional Video Gives Principles - In a two-hour promotional video made in January 1995 and called “The Armed Struggle Underground,” Langan, calling himself “Commander Pedro,” appears in a ski mask alongside others in fatigues brandishing weapons and fistfuls of cash. In the video, Langan says: “Our basic goal is to set up an Aryan republic.… Don’t mistake us for cultists. We, ladies and gentlemen, are your neighbors.” Langan also says the ARA supports “ethnic cleansing” similar to what the Serbians are carrying out in Kosovo. Another ARA member tells viewers that ARA intends to declare war on the American government and promises a “courthouse massacre.” In the video, ARA members state their principles: all racial minorities are subhuman, Jews are “Satan’s spawn,” whites of northern European descent are “chosen people,” and a United Nations-led “New World Order” (see September 11, 1990) threatens freedom in the United States. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/4/1997; Anti-Defamation League, 8/9/2002; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003; New American, 11/28/2005]Oklahoma City Bomber a Member - In 2001, the FBI will state that McVeigh was an ARA member. It is possible that money “laundered” by him shortly before the bombing (see November 1994) came from an ARA bank robbery. [Nicole Nichols, 2003]

A young Louis Beam, dressed in his Ku Klux Klan regalia. [Source: Edit International (.com)]In a number of venues, including “The Seditionist” magazine and an Illinois publication called “The War Eagle: A Voice and Forum for Revolutionary Pan-Aryanism,” white supremacist Louis Beam calls for “leaderless resistance,” or cells of fighters who report to no one. Beam writes that the idea originated in the early 1960s as part of preparations for a Communist takeover of the United States; he has adapted it to the idea of resisting what he calls the threat of “federal tyranny” and the federal government’s “ever increasing persecution and oppression.” Beam writes that the usual “pyramidal” scheme of organization, “with the mass at the bottom and the leader at the top,” is “not only useless, but extremely dangerous for the participants when it is utilized in a resistance movement against state tyranny.… In the pyramid type of organization, an infiltrator can destroy anything which is beneath his level of infiltration and often those above him as well. If the traitor has infiltrated at the top, then the entire organization from the top down is compromised and may be traduced at will.” Beam recommends the independent “cell system” of organization, and cites two examples: the Revolutionary War-era “Sons of Liberty” and the more recent use of “cells” by Communist infiltrators in the US. Beam writes that if the cell system is adopted without the top layer of leadership—leaderless “phantom cells”—this can thwart government efforts to infiltrate and monitor the groups. Every cell must have the same fundamental ideology and agenda, Beam writes, and then can be trusted to operate independently, taking actions that further the cause of the larger group without top-down direction. He concludes: “America is quickly moving into a long dark night of police state tyranny, where the rights now accepted by most as being inalienable will disappear. Let the coming night be filled with a thousand points of resistance. Like the fog which forms when conditions are right and disappears when they are not, so must the resistance to tyranny be.” Beam’s idea will be used by many in the so-called “Patriot Movement.” The “Patriot Movement” is later defined by founder John Wallace and by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a loose confederation of anti-government organizations, groups, and individuals who believe that the US government is illegally infringing on citizens’ liberties. The “Patriot Movement” is largely comprised of right-wing, separatist, and white supremacist organizations, groups, and individuals. [The Seditionist, 2/1992; New York Times, 7/5/1995; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001; John Wallace, 2007]

National Guardsman Timothy McVeigh (see January - March 1991 and After, November 1991 - Summer 1992, and June 1992) writes a letter (some sources will call it an “editorial”) that is published in the Lockport, New York, Union-Sun & Journal. His letter, published under the title “America Faces Problems,” reads in part: “What is it going to take to open up the eyes of our elected officials? AMERICA IS IN SERIOUS DECLINE. We have no proverbial tea to dump; should we instead sink a ship full of Japanese imports?… Is a civil war imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn’t come to that! But it might.” McVeigh continues: “Crime is out of control. Criminals have no fear of punishment. Prisons are overcrowded so they know they will not be imprisoned long.… Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate ‘promises,’ they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up, we suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight. The ‘American Dream’ of the middle class has all but disappeared.… Politicians are further eroding the ‘American Dream’ by passing laws which are supposed to be a ‘quick fix,’ when all they are really designed for is to get the official reelected. These laws tend to ‘dilute’ a problem for a while, until the problem comes roaring back in a worsened form. (Much like a strain of bacteria will alter itself to defeat a known medication.)” McVeigh then writes: “Racism on the rise? You had better believe it… ! At a point when the world has seen communism falter as an imperfect system to manage people; democracy seems to be heading down the same road.… Maybe we have to combine ideologies to achieve the perfect utopian government.… Should only the rich be allowed to live long?” Lockport is a small town north of Buffalo, and serves McVeigh’s home town of Pendleton. McVeigh will have a second letter published in March 1992, that one mainly focusing on the joys of hunting and extolling the “clean, merciful shot” of the deer hunter. Both letters are signed “Tim” and have a preprinted address label pasted beneath the signature. McVeigh will be accused of detonating a massive fertilizer bomb in Oklahoma City; the Union-Sun & Journal managing editor, Dan Kane, will inform the FBI of McVeigh’s letters after McVeigh is taken into custody (see April 21, 1995) on suspicion of perpetrating the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and reprint them. Kane will speculate: “I think the letter was triggered by something that happened in the service. Here’s a man who just got through seeing a lot of blood” in the Persian Gulf war. He was dissatisfied in general with the way the government was operating, and politicians in particular.” Kane will add: “There was one paragraph in particular that made my heart stop a little bit. It was the one that said, ‘shed blood…’ After Oklahoma City, I certainly look at it as a sort of eerie and prophetic statement.” [Los Angeles Times, 4/27/1995; New York Times, 4/27/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 53; CNN, 12/17/2007] McVeigh’s letter is in response to a previous letter he wrote to US Representative John LaFalce (D-NY), the representative of his home district, which received no response. McVeigh’s letter primarily focused on his concerns about the illegality of private citizens possessing “noxious substances” such as CS gas for protection. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 53]

Sergeant Timothy McVeigh, a former Army soldier, white supremacist, and survivalist (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990 and November 1991 - Summer 1992), is notified that the Army will send him $1,058 as a signing bonus for his serving a second term. Later that month, he is informed that the government wants the bonus back, with interest. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; New York Times, 7/1/1998] Later, McVeigh’s father William McVeigh will tell FBI investigators that the Army called the money an overpayment, not a bonus, and that his son was furious over the incident. Documents later gathered by the FBI show that a form letter from the Department of Defense Finance and Accounting Service is sent to McVeigh at his Pendleton, New York, home on February 15, 1993, two years after he left the Army. The letter asks for either the full $1,058 or a $50 installment within 30 days. McVeigh replies: “I have received your notice informing me of my debt owed to you, as well as your threat of referring me to the Justice Department (Big Brother).… In all honesty, I cannot even dream of repaying you the $1,000 which you say I owe. In fact, I can barely afford my monthly rent. Assets? The only thing which I own of any value is my car, a 1987 Chevrolet/Geo Spectrum. If you really want the car, go ahead and seize it.… My car is my only way to get to work; to support myself. But I guess that’s all irrelevant to you. Go ahead, take everything I own; take my dignity. Feel good as you grow fat and rich at my expense; sucking my tax dollars and property, tax dollars which justify your existence and pay your federal salary. Do you get it yet? By doing your evil job, you put me out of work.” [New York Times, 7/1/1998]

Texas law enforcement officers conduct SWAT training near the Mt. Carmel compound of the Branch Davidian sect near Waco, Texas. The Davidians are led by David Koresh (see November 3, 1987 and After), whose teachings of imminent apocalypse and the need to wage armed resistance against the forces of evil seem to be borne out by the days of gunfire and paramilitary activities near the compound. According to a later report by the Treasury Department, Koresh reacts to the SWAT training by: bringing back members from California and England to swell the Davidian ranks; purchasing large amounts of weaponry, weapons parts, and ammunition; acquiring chemicals that can be used for making explosives; and purchasing night vision scopes and sensors. These actions bring the Davidians, and Koresh, to the attention of both local and federal authorities, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF—see June-July 1992). [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995]

Acting on allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children at the Mt. Carmel compound outside of Waco, Texas, the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (DPRS) opens an investigation into the allegations among the Branch Davidian sect living on the property (see November 3, 1987 and After). Caseworkers go to the compound three times and interview a number of children, but close the case when no evidence of abuse is unearthed, though the children talk freely about “all the men” training with weapons (leader David Koresh tells investigative officer Joyce Sparks that the Davidians have “only a few” weapons, and most of the adults have nothing to do with them). After a February 1993 newspaper series that alleges an array of such abuse (see February 27 - March 3, 1993), and especially after the April 1993 debacle that kills 21 children among the group (see April 19, 1993), the DPRS will come under fire for possibly mishandling the case. Many will say that the agency caseworkers made a mistake in not interviewing the children outside the compound, where, away from the adult Davidians, they may have spoken more freely. Bob Boyd, director of the Waco office, will say in 2003 that none of the children said anything that would lead to a belief that they were being abused. “People are under the assumption that if we had taken the children out of there for an interview, they would have opened up to us about abuse,” he says. “The reality was it was highly unlikely. They were such a closed group, and because of their strong beliefs and devotion to [leader David] Koresh, I don’t believe we would have gotten any of them to talk to us about abuse. They were not going to open up to outsiders. Even those kids we talked to who did come out during the standoff didn’t reveal anything to us. It was only after a long time were we able to piece together some pictures of what it was like inside.” David Jewell, whose daughter Kiri will testify to being abused by Koresh since she was 10 (see July 21, 1995), will say he believes caseworkers called ahead before coming to the compound, and the Davidians were able to hide some of the abused children from the caseworkers. Boyd says no such calls were made. Sparks will allege that McLennan County Sheriff Jack Harwell told her to “back off” from investigating abuse complaints; Harwell will deny making such statements. [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 2/25/1993; Waco Tribune-Herald, 3/16/2003]

Terry Nichols, a white supremacist member of the so-called “Patriot Movement” (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990 and February 1992), renounces his US citizenship via a “nonresident alien” declaration to the Evergreen, Michigan, Township Clerk. “[T]here is total corruption in the entire political system,” Nichols says; “the entire political system from the local government on up thru and including the President of the United States, George Bush.” He adds: “I no longer am a citizen of the corrupt political corporate state of Michigan and the United States of America.… I follow the common laws, not the Uniform Commercial Codes, Michigan Statutes, etc., that are all colorable laws.… I lawfully, squarely challenge the fraudulent usurping octopus of jurisdiction/authority that does not apply to me. It is therefore now mandatory for… the so-called IRS, for example, to prove its jurisdiction.” He calls himself “a nonresident alien, non-foreigner, stranger to the current state of the forum.” Many will later detect language similar to that used by the Posse Comitatus movement (see 1969). Nichols has already sent his bank a letter revoking his signature on a credit card application, in an attempt to avoid paying $14,000 in credit card debt (another source will say Nichols owes closer to $40,000), writing in part: “I came across some information and in researching it further I have found that your credit, money, and contracts are all based upon fraud, etc., as stated in my revocation document.” The bank wins a lawsuit to compel Nichols to pay his debt; Nichols attempts to pay the debt with a fraudulent “Certified Fractional Reserve Check,” a scheme somewhat similar to the fraudulent checks advocated by the Montana Freemen (see 1993-1994), which the bank refuses to accept. During the court proceedings, Nichols, ordinarily an unusually quiet and shy man, repeatedly defies judicial orders to, among other things, come to the front of the courtroom, and at one point tells the judge, “I’m… a layman, a natural person, a freedom of common-law citizen under threat and duress and to challenge the jurisdiction of this court.” Circuit Judge Donald A. Teeple will later recall: “He was hollering in a loud voice. I informed him that if he didn’t keep quiet, I’d send him to jail. Then he decided to come around the rail” and participate quietly in the hearing. [New York Times, 4/23/1995; New York Times, 5/28/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; New York Times, 12/24/1997; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003] Both Terry Nichols and his brother James (see December 22 or 23, 1988) routinely stamp their paper money with the words “Discharged Without Prejudice,” a phrase indicating they do not accept its validity. The money-stamping is popular among Posse Comitatus members (see 1969) as they claim money not backed by gold lacks credibility. They also refuse to buy license plates for their vehicles or register them. James Nichols will also renounce his citizenship sometime later [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003] , telling local courthouse officials that he is “no longer one of your citizens or a resident of your de facto government.” In mid-1992, Nichols will spend several days in jail for refusing to recognize a court’s authority to make him pay child support; after those days in a cell, he will agree to the court’s mandate. [New York Times, 4/24/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 109] Nichols will later be convicted for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and December 23, 1997).

“Racial Loyalty,” the monthly newsletter published by the racist Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973 and 1982-1983), reprints an essay by David Lane on “the Christian Right-wing American Patriots, C.R.A.P. (since that is what they do to [sic] the future of all White children).” Lane is a member of the far-right terrorist group The Order (see Late September 1983) and is serving a 40-year racketeering sentence, as well as a 150-year term for civil rights violation in connection with the 1984 murder of radio talk show host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After). Many far-right organizations who espouse their own versions of Christianity (see 1960s and After), including the Ku Klux Klan, oppose the COTC’s rejection of Christianity. [Anti-Defamation League, 1993]

BATF logo. [Source: Wikimedia]The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF, sometimes known as the ATF) opens an investigation of the Branch Davidian sect near Waco, Texas, after learning that a resident had mail-ordered a box of dummy grenades. Lieutenant Gene Barber of the McLennan County Sheriff’s Department meets with BATF agent Davy Aguilera; Barber, a recognized explosives expert, tells Aguilera that the United Parcel Service (UPS) package delivery service has delivered a number of packages containing firearms components and explosives (see May 1992) to the “Mag-Bag,” the UPS nickname for the Davidian tract, in the names of David Koresh and Mike Schroeder. Koresh is the leader of the religious community that lives on the tract (see November 3, 1987 and After), which is also known to area residents as Mt. Carmel. UPS employee Larry Gilbreath reported the suspicious deliveries to the local sheriff’s department. Gilbreath also informed Barber that the compound seems to be patrolled by armed guards. In May 1992, UPS delivered two cases of inert hand grenades and a quantity of black powder to the compound; in early June, UPS delivered 90 pounds of powdered aluminum, 30 to 40 heavy cardboard tubes, and 60 M-16/AR-15 ammunition magazines. Barber also gives Aguilera aerial photos of the compound, taken by the sheriff’s department, which depict a buried bus near the main structure and a three- to four-story tall observation tower. He tells Aguilera that neighbors have heard machine-gun fire coming from the property. Aguilera determines that in late 1992, the Davidians spent over $44,000 on parts for M-16/AR-15 machine guns, as well as a variety of other weaponry and weapons parts. Some of the parts come from an Illinois firm under investigation for selling illegal guns and gun parts. [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 2/25/1993; Dick J. Reavis, 7/19/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Aguilera officially opens a BATF investigation on Koresh and the Davidians on June 9. Within a week, Philip Chojnacki, the special agent in charge of the Houston BATF office, classifies the case “sensitive,” thereby calling for a high degree of oversight from both Houston and BATF headquarters in Washington, DC. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] In 1996, a Congressional investigation will find that the BATF investigation is “grossly incompetent” (see August 2, 1996). [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]

2007 picture of Davy Aguilera, at that time as assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles BATF bureau. [Source: Riverside Press-Enterprise]Davy Aguilera of the Austin, Texas, office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), as part of an ongoing BATF investigation into the weapons allegedly owned by the Branch Davidian religious sect living outside Waco, Texas (see June-July 1992), visits the shop of a local gun dealer, Henry McMahon. Aguilera is accompanied by BATF compliance officer Jimmy Ray Skinner. During the visit, Aguilera and Skinner find that weapons parts for AR-15 assault rifles are listed in McMahon’s inventory, but are not on the premises nor are they listed as sold. McMahon admits that the parts were sold to Davidian sect leader David Koresh (see November 3, 1987 and After). McMahon calls Koresh, who offers to let the BATF agents inspect the Davidian compound for possible weapons violations. The agents decline the invitation. Shortly afterwards, McMahon tells Koresh that he is suspicious that the BATF is investigating Koresh and the Davidians. The 1996 House investigation of the Davidian situation (see August 2, 1996) will express the investigators’ confusion as to why the agents do not accept Koresh’s invitation, and finds, “The agents’ decline of the Koresh offer was a serious mistake.” [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]

White supremacist Randy Weaver surrenders after an 11-day standoff with federal authorities at his cabin on Ruby Ridge, Idaho. The standoff cost the lives of Weaver’s wife and son, and a US marshal. The incident, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, will “galvanize… many on the radical right.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001]

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF, sometimes known as the ATF) resumes its investigation into the Branch Davidian sect living in a compound, known as Mt. Carmel, outside Waco, Texas (see June-July 1992 and July 30, 1992). The investigation is spearheaded by BATF Special Agent Davy Aguilera, who has reason to believe that the Branch Davidians, under the leadership of David Koresh, are stockpiling a large amount of guns, weapons, and other military materiel. Neighbors have spoken of hearing machine-gun fire at the Mt. Carmel site. Aguilera learns that one of the Davidians is Marshal Keith Butler, a machinist capable of creating illegal guns from the parts bought by the Davidians; Butler has an extensive criminal record, mostly for drug possession. Aguilera also talks to a McLennan County deputy sheriff, Terry Fuller, who heard a loud explosion and saw a large cloud of grey smoke over the northeastern part of the Davidian property. (Fuller investigated and learned that the Davidians had been using dynamite for construction, a fact Aguilera does not elicit.) He learns from BATF Special Agent Carlos Torres that the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (DPRS) has investigated the Davidians, and their leader David Koresh (see November 3, 1987 and After), on suspicion of physically and sexually abusing children (see April 1992), and learns from former Waco Davidian Robyn Bunds that she had a child by Koresh, and she left because of Koresh’s increasingly abusive behavior towards herself and other community members. Bunds also tells Aguilera that she found what she later learned was a machine gun conversion kit. Her mother Jeannine Bunds, another former resident of the Mt. Carmel community, tells Aguilera that she frequently saw the men practicing with AK-47 and AR-15 machine guns, and that Koresh has fathered children with women and girls as young as 12 years of age, indicating that he may be guilty of statutory rape, a felony in Texas. Aguilera confirms that some 40 of the Mt. Carmel residents are foreign nationals, and that many of them either entered the country illegally or overstayed their visa; he will write in an affidavit for a search warrant (see February 25, 1993) that “it is a violation of Title 18, U.S.C. Section 922, for an illegal alien to receive a firearm.” BATF agents speak to Poia Vaega, a former Davidian now living in New Zealand, who makes further allegations of physical and sexual abuse. Vaega confirms what both Bunds have already said, that Koresh enforces a strict rule that only he can have sexual relations with the females of the community, and that he routinely has sex with girls as young as 11. Several BATF agents confirm that the Davidians have the proper parts, chemical compounds, and equipment to create a wide array of illegal guns, bombs, and explosives, and that in the past BATF agents have seized a number of illegal weapons from the Davidians. David Block, a former Waco Davidian, tells Aguilera that he has seen copies of books in the main building that tell the reader how to manufacture illegal bombs and explosives. Another source tells the BATF that the Davidians have made live grenades and are attempting to make a radio-controlled aircraft for carrying explosives. Documents show that Koresh has spent $199,715 on weapons and ammunition in the past 17 months, including M-16 automatic rifles and parts necessary for turning semiautomatic rifles into machine guns. [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 2/25/1993; Newsweek, 5/3/1993; Conway and Siegelman, 1995, pp. 244; Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; Dick J. Reavis, 7/19/1995; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] Koresh and the Davidians have also buried a bus in the ground and stocked it with food for a year; members practice daily military drills, and both children and adults are taught how to commit suicide with a gun. [Conway and Siegelman, 1995, pp. 244] In 1996, a Congressional investigation will find that the BATF investigation is “grossly incompetent” (see August 2, 1996). [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]

Terry Nichols. [Source: Oklahoma City Police Department]White separatist Terry Nichols (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990, December 22 or 23, 1988, April 2, 1992 and After, and October 12, 1993 - January 1994) makes a number of trips to the Phillippines, apparently to meet with al-Qaeda bomber Ramzi Yousef and other radical Islamists. Nichols will later help plan and execute the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Nichols’s wife is a mail-order bride from Cebu City; Nichols spends an extensive amount of time on the island of Mindanao, where many Islamist terror cells operate. This information comes from a Philippine undercover operative, Edwin Angeles, and one of his wives. Angeles is the second in command in the militant group Abu Sayyaf from 1991 to 1995 while secretly working for Philippine intelligence at the same time (see 1991-Early February 1995). After the Oklahoma City bombing, Angeles will claim in a videotaped interrogation that in late 1992 and early 1993 Nichols meets with Yousef and a second would-be American terrorist, John Lepney. In 1994, Nichols meets with Yousef, Lepney, and others. For about a week, Angeles, Yousef, Nichols, and Lepney are joined by Abdurajak Janjalani, the leader of Abu Sayyaf; two members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF); Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah, both of whom are working with Yousef on the Bojinka plot (see January 6, 1995); and a half-brother of Yousef known only by the alias Ahmad Hassim (this is a probable reference to Yousef’s brother Abd al-Karim Yousef, who is living in the Philippines at this time). Elmina Abdul, Angeles’s third wife, will add additional details about these 1994 meetings in a taped 2002 hospital confession to a Philippines reporter days before her death. She only remembers Nichols as “Terry” or “The Farmer,” and doesn’t remember the name of the other American. She says: “They talked about bombings. They mentioned bombing government buildings in San Francisco, St. Louis, and in Oklahoma. The Americans wanted instructions on how to make and to explode bombs. [Angeles] told me that Janjalani was very interested in paying them much money to explode the buildings. The money was coming from Yousef and the other Arab.” [Gulf News, 4/3/2002; Insight, 4/19/2002; Manila Times, 4/26/2002; Insight, 6/22/2002; Nicole Nichols, 2003] (“The other Arab” may be a reference to the Arab Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, because Janjalani’s younger brother later claims Abu Sayyaf was funded in its early years by Yousef and Khalifa.) [CNN, 1/31/2007] Abdul claims Nichols and Lepney are sent to an unnamed place for more instructions on bomb-making to destroy a building in the US. She also says that Angeles and others in Abu Sayyaf believe Yousef works for the Iraqi government. [Insight, 6/22/2002] The Manila Times later reports that “Lepney did indeed reside and do business in Davao City [in the Southern Philippines] during 1990 to 1996.” One bar owner recalls that when Lepney got drunk he liked to brag about his adventures with local rebel groups. [Manila Times, 4/26/2002] In 2003, Nicole Nichols (no relation to Terry Nichols), the director of the watchdog organization Citizens against Hate, will explain why an American white supremacist would make common cause with Islamist terrorists. Two unifying factors exist, she writes: an overarching hatred of Jews and Israel, and a similarly deep-seated hatred of the US government. [Nicole Nichols, 2003] After Nichols takes part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), Wali Khan Amin Shah will attempt to take the credit for plotting the bombing for himself and Yousef, a claim federal authorities will not accept (see April 19, 1995 and 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After).

David Koresh holds up a Bible while standing in front of a church. [Source: My Deactivated Guns (.com)]Davy Aguilera, a senior agent of the Texas branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) and the lead investigator in the bureau’s Branch Davidian/David Koresh probe (see June-July 1992 and November 1992 - January 1993), interviews BATF Special Agent Carlos Torres about his knowledge of the Davidians. Torres says that on December 4 he interviewed Joyce Sparks, an investigator for the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (DPRS), who has twice visited the Mt. Carmel compound of the Davidians outside of Waco to check on allegations of child abuse (see April 1992). According to Torres, Sparks said that on her last visit to the compound on April 6, “Koresh told her that he was the ‘messenger’ from God, that the world was coming to an end, and that when he ‘reveals’ himself, the riots in Los Angeles would pale in comparison to what was going to happen in Waco, Texas.” According to Sparks, Koresh’s self-revelation “would be a ‘military type operation’ and… all the ‘non-believers’ would have to suffer.” In 1993, columnist Daniel Wattenberg will dispute Sparks’s claim, noting that the Los Angeles riots began on April 29, 1992, more than three weeks after Sparks’s last visit to the compound. [American Spectator, 8/1/1993]

An image of a fraudulent ‘Freeman check’ signed by LeRoy Schweitzer. [Source: Anti-Defamation League]During this time period, over a dozen Montana anti-government tax resisters—the kernel of what will become the “Montana Freemen” movement (see 1983-1995)—establish themselves, creating what they term “common law courts” in Garfield and Musselshell Counties, and mounting a massive bank fraud scheme. [Billings Gazette, 3/25/2006]Beliefs - According to a Washington Post article, the Freemen espouse a number of beliefs that directly contradict federal, state, and local laws. These are: All forms of organized government are illegitimate and have no right to perform duties routinely assigned to governments, from collecting taxes to requiring automobile licenses. Thusly, the Freemen can perform a multitude of actions, such as defying foreclosures, issuing arrest warrants, and even putting government officials on “trial.” They can also act as their own central banks and defraud the government, financial institutions, and area merchants. Racist 'Christian Identity' Ideology - According to the Montana Human Rights Network and local citizens, most of the Freemen espouse some form of “Christian Identity” religious ideology, which claims that whites are inherently superior to other “inferior” races (see 1960s and After); they also hold radical anti-government views. [Washington Post, 4/1996; Washington Post, 4/9/1996; Billings Gazette, 3/25/2006] The Anti-Defamation League traces the roots of the Freemen ideology to the the Posse Comitatus movement (see 1969). [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996] They call themselves “Freemen” because, in their view, white Christian males have special “Freemen” citizenship status, while non-whites, non-Christians, and women have second class status or worse. Freemen are above government prosecution and taxation. As US currency has no intrinsic value, any loans taken by Freemen need not be repaid. The US government is run by Jews and therefore has no legitimacy. “Common law” is the rule of the land. [New York Times, 6/15/1996] The Reverend Jerry Walters of Roundup, Montana, will later characterize the Freemen’s beliefs as a “bizarre distortion of the Christianity taught in most churches on Sundays.” (Rodney Skurdal will file a $100 billion lien against Walters after Walters refuses to alter his sermons to reflect Skurdal’s Christian Identity beliefs.) The Post will observe: “American history is littered with examples of how hard economic times produce hard-edged political splinter groups, but the Freemen of Montana are a particularly virulent strain. Their philosophy, a hodgepodge drawn from the Old Testament, the Magna Carta, the anti-tax Posse Comitatus of the 1980s, and a highly selective reading of the Constitution, is laced with racism and talk of a Jewish conspiracy, and puts them at the extreme of the Christian patriot movement.” Steven Gardner of the Coalition for Human Dignity will say: “The Freemen have, in effect, appointed themselves judge, jury and executioner. They are trying to form their own shadow government for a white Christian republic.” [Washington Post, 4/1996; Washington Post, 4/9/1996; Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996; Billings Gazette, 3/25/2006] “What’s driving them is their biblical and theological agenda,” Walters will say. “Their anti-government conspiracy theories, their anti-tax stance—they’re looking at these things through the lens of Christian Identity.” [Washington Post, 4/9/1996]Fraudulent Liens - LeRoy Schweitzer and the others concoct a scheme to generate money by filing phony liens against various Montana property owners, or the Montana or US government. The liens have no value; however, once they are created, it takes time for bank computers to recognize them as invalid. During that “window” of time, the liens can be used to generate money transfers from unsuspecting banks. The Freemen file the liens and deposit fake money orders at other banks to be drawn upon the bank listing the lien. The money orders are usually signed by Schweitzer, though Skurdal, Daniel Petersen, and William Stanton (see October 17, 1994) also sign them on occasion. The money orders look quite official, though sometimes they deliberately spell the words “United States” with a lowercase “u.” The Freemen also issue bogus checks labeled “Certified Bankers Check—Controller Warrant,” instead of a bank name, along with account and lien numbers. Many checks are drawn against a non-existent account in a Butte, Montana, branch of the Norwest Bank. The checks state that they are also redeemable at the Office of the US Postmaster. The scheme is, on the whole, quite profitable. The Freemen also sell the money orders, advertising them to their fellow citizens as a quick means of getting out of debt. One distributor explains on a Web site: “LeRoy Schweitzer does have their [sic] own monetary system. When you attend their course on location, they will issue you CHECKS times two (biblical) to pay off all IRS debts and all loans to banks for no charge. They are having success in this area, but it is hard fight [sic].” One Omaha, Nebraska, county treasurer will later explain, “People see these and, if you’re a very unsuspecting person, they really do look authentic.” [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996] Schweitzer, Skurdal, and Petersen are influenced by Roy Schwasinger, described by federal authorities as a right-wing con artist and head of the Colorado extremist group “We the People.” Schwasinger originated the financial schemes that the Freemen run. [New York Times, 6/15/1996]Appointing Themselves as Legal Officials - The Freemen appoint themselves “justices,” issue “arrest warrants,” and flood local courts and counties with what the Billings Gazette will term “bogus documents.” One of the documents, written by the three Freemen leaders, Skurdal, Schweitzer, and Petersen, is interpreted by local law enforcement officials as a threat. It states: “We the Honorable justices, will not hesitate to use our Lawful force by whatever means necessary to fully support, protect, guarantee, and defend our (common) Law… and… Right of self governing as a free sovereign and independent state.” District Court Judge Peter Rapkoch calls the documents “a bucket of snakes.” In July 1994, one of the Freemen, Skurdal, is prohibited by court order from filing or recording any “frivolous” document with any Montana county clerk of court, clerk and recorder, or the secretary of state (see 1994); Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean A. Turnage calls Skurdal’s filings “not only nonsensical but meritless, frivolous, vexatious, and wasteful of the limited time and resources of this court, of the clerk of this court, and of the various public officials and counsel that are forced to deal with and respond to Mr. Skurdal’s abuse.” Garfield County prosecutor Nick Murnion files misdemeanor charges of impersonating public officials against 13 residents and a felony charge of solicitation of kidnapping against Ralph Clark for a $1 million bounty posted around the county for court officers, the sheriff, and Murnion. Garfield County Sheriff Charles Phipps organizes a posse of about 90 local residents to come to the aid of his outmanned, outgunned three-person department (see January 1994). Murnion eventually files felony criminal syndicalism charges against Freemen members. US Attorney Sherry Matteucci works with local and state officials to share information on anti-government activities. “I think their purpose is to intimidate people and to cause chaos in governmental operations,” she says. [Washington Post, 4/9/1996; Chicago Tribune, 4/19/1996; Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996; Billings Gazette, 3/25/2006]

Eight agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) take up surveillance on the Branch Davidian compound just outside of Waco, Texas, after compiling evidence of illegal gun caches and child abuse among the community (see November 1992 - January 1993). The agents assume undercover identities as students at Texas State Technical Institute and rent a ramshackle house directly across from the front driveway leading into the Davidian property. One of the agents pretends to be interested in the Davidians’ religious teachings in order to gain access to the compound itself. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]Weapons Observed - The agents who manage to gain access to the compound find a large cache of semi-automatic weapons, including AK-47’s, AR-15’s, M-16’s, 9-millimeter handguns, Israeli assault rifles, and others. [New York Times, 3/27/1993]Undercover Identities Compromised - Many of the Davidians believe the men to be federal agents, correctly surmising that they are too old and too affluent to be college students. The 1995 House investigation of the Davidian debacle (see August 2, 1996) will determine that “a series of mistakes” by the agents alerts the Davidians to their true identities; a 1996 House committee report will find, “At least some of the breaches of security were so serious, and obvious, that they should have been recognized as such by [B]ATF, and become the basis for modifying the nature and timing of any subsequent action against [Davidian leader David] Koresh.” Koresh tells his next-door neighbor of his suspicions, and says he believes the “college students” to be federal agents. The agents are told by another neighbor that Koresh suspects them of being undercover agents. On one occasion, some Davidians visit the agents’ house with a six-pack of beer to welcome their new neighbors, but the agents refuse to let them in. One of the agents, Robert Rodriguez, will later testify that “all of [the undercover BATF agents], or myself, knew we were going to have problems. It was just too—too obvious.” Agents Unprepared with Basic Intelligence - Moreover, the agents’ preparation was so poor that they do not even know what Koresh looks like; their single means of identifying him is an old driver’s license photograph. The House investigation will find that the “lack of such basic and critical intelligence clearly undermined the ability of the undercover operation to fulfill its mission.” [New York Times, 3/6/1993; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]Surveillance Fails to Find Evidence of Criminal Activity - The surveillance, including film from cameras peering into the Davidian compound, produces no evidence of criminal activity. What surveillance material that is created—some 900 photographs and other materials—is largely ignored. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]'Grossly Incompetent' - In 1996, the House committee investigation will find that the BATF investigation is “grossly incompetent” (see August 2, 1996). [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) asks the Army for assistance in raiding the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas (see November 1992 - January 1993 and 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993). The request is not acknowledged by federal or military officials for over six years. Army officials will note that such involvement is illegal unless the president personally makes the request; they say that no such request was ever considered. In 1999, the General Accounting Office (GAO) will find that military personnel were called to the scene after the BATF “cited possible drug-related activity” at the Davidian compound. The BATF makes the request through Operation Alliance, an agency that coordinates law enforcement requests for military help in fighting drugs. The BATF requests training by special forces troops, instruction in driving Bradley Fighting Vehicles (BFVs), and the loan of seven BFVs. Operation Alliance will forward the request to Fort Bliss, the home of Joint Task Force 6 (JTF-6), the military’s headquarters for domestic anti-drug efforts. JTF-6 officials are told that the requested assistance is “in direct support of interdiction activities along the Southwest border.” However, Major Mark Petree, the commander of the Army’s special forces, questions the legality of the request. His legal adviser, Major Phillip Lindley, writes a memo stating that the BATF request would make the military an active, illegal partner in a domestic police action. JTF-6 officers accuse Lindley of trying to undermine the mission, and Lindley refers the matter to Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Andrews, the deputy staff judge advocate. Andrews says that the military could probably evaluate the BATF plan of attack (see February 24-27, 1993), but cannot intervene to cancel or revise it. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996; Associated Press, 10/31/1999] In 1996, a Congressional investigation will find that the BATF deliberately misrepresented the Davidians as a drug cartel in order to receive military assistance and avoid reimbursing the military for that assistance (see August 2, 1996). [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]

White separatist Timothy McVeigh (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990), already mulling over plans to bomb an Oklahoma City federal building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), quits his job with an upstate New York security company (see November 1991 - Summer 1992), sells all of his belongings except what will fit into his car, and begins traveling around the US attending gun shows and militia events. Not all militia movements are characterized by the racist ideology that helps impel McVeigh, but many are, and many white hate groups are making common cause with militias. McVeigh ekes out enough money selling knives, fatigues, and copies of The Turner Diaries (see 1978) to continue his travels, and meets a number of like-minded people. One gun collector who knows McVeigh from the circuit will later tell investigators: “He carried that book all the time. He sold it at the shows. He’d have a few copies in the cargo pocket of his cammies. They were supposed to be $10, but he’d sell them for $5. It was like he was looking for converts.… He could make 10 friends at a show, just by his manner and demeanor. He’s polite, he doesn’t interrupt.” The gun collector, who refuses to give his name to a reporter, also recalls McVeigh living mostly in his car and carrying a “big pistol” with him at all times. An undercover detective will later recall McVeigh showing people at one 1993 gun show in Phoenix how to convert a flare gun into a rocket launcher, and giving out documents with the name and address of the FBI sniper who had shot the wife of white supremacist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge (see August 31, 1992). Psychology professor Gerald Post will later say, “Gun shows have become town hall meetings for racists and antigovernment radicals.” At McVeigh’s trial, prosecutors will say that McVeigh used the gun shows to “fence stolen weapons, make contacts to buy bomb materials, and hone his terrorist skills.” During his travels, McVeigh writes to his sister Jennifer, saying that the government is planning to disarm gun owners and incarcerate them in concentration camps. [New York Times, 7/5/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] Author Brandon M. Stickney will later write: “Today, this part of McVeigh’s life would be difficult even for Tim to document, but it was during this odyssey of uncertainty that he became seriously involved in a dangerous world. Tim was now driven by a desire for ‘citizen action,’ or a movement by the people to alter the liberal thinking of politicians and officials in power.… [I]t is believed that during those lost days, he was frequently exposed to the growing ‘paramilitary’ underworld of Michigan and other states. Groups whose members were upset with taxes, political corruption, and incidents like Ruby Ridge spoke of organizing ‘militias.’” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 150]Meets Fellow Anti-Government Figures at Gun Shows - Along the way, McVeigh meets Andreas Strassmeir, the head of security for the far-right white supremacist community at Elohim City, Oklahoma (see 1973 and After). He also meets gun dealer Roger Moore at a gun show; McVeigh’s partner Terry Nichols will later rob Moore (see November 5, 1994) as part of McVeigh and Nichols’s bomb plot. [New York Times, 7/5/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Nicole Nichols, 2003] Moore is an outspoken man who loudly boasts about his love of country and his hatred for the federal government. He frequently says he would be more than willing to take part in a violent assault against federal law enforcement officials, but, he says, his girlfriend, Karen Anderson, will not let him get involved in such activities. He will later tell a reporter: “I don’t give a sh_t. I’ll put on my flak vest, take a bunch of godd_mn guns in my van, and if I get in a firefight, so be it. I wanna run around and dig up a lot of stuff, but she will not let me go anywhere.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 59]Admires Davidian Attack on Federal Law Enforcement Officials - McVeigh has recently developed a crippling habit of gambling on football games, and has maxed out several credit cards, severely damaging his financial status, though by the end of 1992 he had paid off all but one $10,000 debt. According to his later recollections, he is depressed and frustrated by his inability to find someone to love. He spends some time in Florida, living with his sister and working for her husband as an electrician. He meets Moore while in Florida, and shares a table with him at one gun show. He finds Miami too loud and the people offensive, so he leaves shortly after his arrival. It is at this time that he first learns of the federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993), and while watching news coverage of the event, tells his sister that the Davidians “must be doing something right, they are killing Feds.” [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]

BATF agents train for a raid. [Source: Time]The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF, sometimes known as the ATF) begins preparing for a large-scale raid on the Waco, Texas, compound, Mt. Carmel, owned by the Branch Davidian sect. The BATF has evidence that the Davidians and their leader, David Koresh, own a large amount of possibly illegal weapons, are committing statutory rape and child abuse against the female children of the group, and are possibly beating the children as a means of discipline (see November 1992 - January 1993). The raid is approved by BATF Director Stephen Higgins, after a recommendation from Philip Chojnacki, the senior BATF agent in the Houston office. Undercover BATF agents who have infiltrated the Davidian community recommend that the assault take place on a Sunday morning, because during Sunday morning prayer services the men are separated from the women and children, and do not have easy access to the Davidians’ cache of weapons. [New York Times, 3/3/1993; Dick J. Reavis, 7/19/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995]Significant Lack of Planning - Information compiled after the raid, in which the Davidians kill four BATF agents (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993), is somewhat contradictory; a Treasury Department report issued after the April conflagration at the compound (see Late September - October 1993) will claim there is no written plan for the “dynamic entry” to be executed by BATF agents, and that the raid is code-named “Trojan Horse.” Agents who participate in the assault will later say the raid is code-named “Showtime.” [New York Times, 3/3/1993; Dick J. Reavis, 7/19/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995] According to the Treasury Department report, acting Special Agent in Charge Darrell Dyer, assigned as support coordinator for the operation, arrived in Waco from his Kansas City office on February 23, asked to see the documents for the plan of attack, and was told none had been drawn up. Dyer and agent William Krone draw up a plan on their own, though they have little knowledge about the work performed by the tactical planners. The two manage to generate a rough plan, but the plan remains on Krone’s desk and is never distributed or referred to during the actual raid. [New York Times, 10/1/1993]Element of Surprise Key - According to later testimony before a House investigative committee (see August 2, 1996), the element of surprise is so integral to the raid that if it is lost, the raid is to be aborted. Ronald Noble, assistant secretary-designate of the treasury for law enforcement, will testify that on-site BATF commanders knew of the provision. Noble will say in 1995, and will be quoted in the 1996 House investigative report, “What was absolutely clear in Washington at Treasury and in Washington and ATF was that no raid should proceed once the element of surprise was lost.” However, Dan Hartnett, deputy director of the BATF for enforcement, will contradict Noble’s assertion, saying that while “secrecy and safety” were “discussed over and over again,” the provision that the raid should be called off if the Davidians were alerted to it beforehand was not in place; Hartnett will accuse Noble of trying to deflect blame away from the Treasury Department and onto the BATF. The report will conclude that no such provision was in place. The BATF commanders will order the raid to go forward even after learning that the Davidians know it is coming. The House report will conclude that the lack of such a provision was a critical failure of the plan. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]No Alternatives Considered - BATF agents will also later claim that the raid was necessary because Koresh never left the compound. However, evidence will show that at least three times between January 17 and February 24, Koresh did exit the compound, where agents could have easily apprehended him; among other examples, Koresh is a regular patron of the Chelsea Bar and Grill in Waco, and leaves the compound regularly to jog. According to the Treasury Department report and a 1996 report by the House investigative committee, other options are considered but rejected. The first is to avoid violence and merely serve the warrants by visiting the compound. This is rejected because of Koresh’s history of antipathy towards law enforcement and his propensity towards violence (see November 3, 1987 and After). A second option, arresting Koresh while he is away from the compound, is rejected because, according to subsequent testimony by Chojnacki, Koresh supposedly never leaves the site. A third option, a plan to besiege Mt. Carmel, is rejected because of the possibility that the Davidians might destroy the illegal weapons, commit mass suicide, or both. [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; Dick J. Reavis, 7/19/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]Warnings of Violent Response Ignored - The Congressional report will find, “The [B]ATF chose the dynamic entry raid, the most hazardous of the options, despite its recognition that a violent confrontation was predictable.” Before the raid, BATF agents discussed the idea of launching a raid with Joyce Sparks, a Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (DPRS) caseworker who has spent a considerable amount of time with Koresh and the Davidians (see April 1992). Sparks is familiar with the Davidians’ apocalyptic religious beliefs, and warned the agents that to launch a raid on the compound would invite a violent response. “They will get their guns and kill you,” she told the agents. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]Plans, Execution Botched - The Congressional investigation will find that the BATF plan for attacking the Davidian compound was “significantly flawed… poorly conceived, utilized a high risk tactical approach when other tactics could have been successfully used… drafted and commanded by [B]ATF agents who were less qualified than other available agents, and used agents who were not sufficiently trained for the operation.” [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] Reflecting on the planning 10 years later, Robert White, a senior BATF agent wounded in the raid, will recall: “The people actually calling the shots, whether to go or not, did not have the tactical training necessary to make those kind of decisions. They had the authority to make those decisions simply because of their rank.” White will say that because of the botched raid, the agency will revise its tactical procedures: “Now, before any decision is made, a leader of one of the tactical teams, someone who has been trained specifically for that purpose, will make the call.” [Waco Tribune-Herald, 3/16/2003]Top Treasury Officials Not Informed - The report also expresses surprise at BATF Director Higgins’s failure to appraise either Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen or Deputy Secretary Roger Altman of the raid. The report will state, “Neither [Bentsen] nor his deputy knew anything about an imminent law enforcement raid—one of the largest ever conducted in US history—being managed by his department, which would endanger the lives of dozens of law enforcement agents, women, and children.” [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF, sometimes abbreviated ATF) agent Davy Aguilera obtains a warrant, or affidavit as it is sometimes called in law enforcement terminology, to search the Branch Davidian compound, known to many as Mt. Carmel, just outside of Waco, Texas. Aguilera, a BATF agent out of Austin, Texas, secures the warrant from US Magistrate Judge Dennis Green in Waco. Aguilera says the evidence for the warrant comes from his own investigation, “as well as information furnished to me by other law enforcement officers and concerned citizens” (see March 5-9, 1992, June-July 1992, November 1992 - January 1993, December 7, 1992, January 11, 1993 and After, and January 22 - Early February, 1993). Aguilera’s warrant gives legal standing for the BATF’s upcoming raid on the Davidian compound (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993). Aguilera writes, “I believe that Vernon Howell, aka David Koresh and/or his followers who reside at the compound known locally as the Mt. Carmel Center are unlawfully manufacturing and possessing machine guns and explosive devices.” [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 2/25/1993] The legitimacy of the BATF affidavits and warrants will be disputed. After the events of the final assault (see April 19, 1993), a retired FBI agent will examine the original BATF affidavits and say that the agency lacked probable cause for them. In 1996, a Congressional investigation will find that the warrant is replete with “an incredible number of false statements” (see August 2, 1996); one example is its claim, based on witness statements, that the Davidians own a British Boys anti-tank .52 caliber rifle, when in fact they own a Barret light .50 firearm. Possession of the British Boys constitutes a felony, while ownership of the Barret is legal. The affidavit relies heavily on information provided by former Davidian Marc Breault (see February 27 - March 3, 1993); it does not note that Breault left the compound as an opponent of Koresh, a fact that might affect his motives in speaking against Koresh. Nor does the affidavit note that Breault is almost completely blind, but instead claims that he was a bodyguard who “participated in physical training and firearm shooting exercises conducted by Howell. He stood guard armed with a loaded weapon.” Aguilera repeatedly misrepresents and misstates the facts of weapons laws in the affidavit, and misstates the types of weapons parts that Koresh and the Davidians are known to have purchased. The investigation will find that while legitimate evidence exists that would constitute probable cause for a warrant, the BATF agents “responsible for preparing the affidavits knew or should have known that many of the statements were false.” [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]

Bomb damage in underground levels of the WTC in 1993. [Source: Najlah Feanny/ Corbis]An attempt to topple the World Trade Center in New York City fails, but six people are killed and over 1,000 injured in the misfired blast. The explosion is caused by the detonation of a truck bomb in the underground parking garage. An FBI explosives expert will later state, “If they had found the exact architectural Achilles’ heel or if the bomb had been a little bit bigger, not much more, 500 pounds more, I think it would have brought her down.” Ramzi Yousef, who has close ties to Osama bin Laden, organizes the attempt. [Village Voice, 3/30/1993; US Congress, 2/24/1998] The New York Times will report on Emad Salem, an undercover agent who will be the key government witness in the trial against Yousef. Salem will testify that the FBI knew about the attack beforehand and told him it would thwart the attack by substituting a harmless powder for the explosives. However, an FBI supervisor called off this plan and the bombing was not stopped. [New York Times, 10/28/1993] Other suspects were ineptly investigated before the bombing as early as 1990. Several of the bombers were trained by the CIA to fight in the Afghan war and the CIA will conclude, in internal documents, that it was “partly culpable” for this bombing (see January 24, 1994). [Independent, 11/1/1998] 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is an uncle of Yousef and also has a role in the bombing (see March 20, 1993). [Independent, 6/6/2002; Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002] One of the bombers even leaves a message, which will be found by investigators, stating, “Next time, it will be very precise.” [Associated Press, 9/30/2001]

Waco Tribune-Herald headline for its ‘Sinful Messiah’ series, with a photo of Davidian leader David Koresh. [Source: Pyreaus (.com)]The Waco Tribune-Herald begins what it calls the “Sinful Messiah” series of articles on Branch Davidian leader David Koresh, formerly Vernon Howell (see November 3, 1987 and After). Based on interviews with former members of the sect, the series accuses Koresh of being a “cult leader” who physically abuses children and takes underage brides, even raping one of them. [Waco Tribune-Herald, 3/3/1993; XTimeline, 7/2010] Two weeks into the standoff, Newsweek will publish an article on Koresh and the Davidians that draws heavily on the Waco Tribune-Herald series. [Newsweek, 3/15/1993] An August 1992 investigation by the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (DPRS) found no evidence of such claims (see April 1992). Sexual Abuse Claims - Koresh, the series claims, advocates polygamy for himself, declaring himself the husband of multiple females of the community. The articles say he claims to be entitled to 140 wives or more, can legitimately claim any of the women in the community, has fathered at least a dozen children, and that some of his brides are as young as 12 or 13. The sources claim that Koresh annulled all the marriages among the Davidians, and told the men that they would receive their “perfect mates” in heaven. For the time they are on Earth, he told them, only he would have wives. Koresh keeps the men and women rigidly separated except during Bible studies. [Waco Tribune-Herald, 3/3/1993; XTimeline, 7/2010]Physical Abuse Claims - The articles claim that Koresh beats children as young as eight months of age. Former Davidian Michelle Tom testified in a Michigan court custody case that Koresh beat her daughter Tarah Tom with a wooden spatula until the girl’s bottom was bruised and bloody. The girl had cried when placed on Koresh’s lap, Tom testified. A former Davidian who refuses to be identified confirms Tom’s story, saying that the little girl’s “bottom was completely black and blue.” During the same court case, Tom and other former Davidians claimed that Koresh was particularly harsh with his own son Cyrus. When Cyrus was three and living with Koresh (then Howell) in Pomona, California, Koresh once tied him to the garage for the night, after telling him that there were rats in the garage who liked to eat children. Tom and others recall hearing Cyrus scream as his father beat him. Bringing the Apocalypse - Koresh, according to the articles, claims to be the Lamb of Heaven whose mystical task it is to open the Seven Seals of the Biblical Apocalypse, thus bringing about the end of the world. The Davidians, according to the articles, intend to slay all non-believers (whom Koresh calls “the Babylonians”) once the Apocalypse begins, and Koresh’s male children will rule at his side thereafter. Koresh says: “If the Bible is true, then I’m Christ. But so what? Look at 2,000 years ago. What’s so great about being Christ? A man nailed to the cross. A man of sorrow acquainted with grief. You know, being Christ ain’t nothing. Know what I mean?… If the Bible is true, I’m Christ. If the Bible is true. But all I want out of this is for people to be honest this time.” The sources say Koresh uses “mind control” techniques to indoctrinate his followers, including marathon sermons and Bible study sessions lasting up to 15 hours at a stretch. One former member who refuses to be named says of the sessions: “You don’t have time to think. He doesn’t give you time to think about what you’re doing. It’s just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.” Other methods employed by Koresh include confusing, rapid-fire discourses about abstruse Biblical topics, and a propensity to force community members to listen to sermons at odd hours of the night. Another former member, also refusing to be named, says: “You felt like you were in the know. Others in the world might consider you average. Let them. They were unbelievers. But you knew something they didn’t—something that put you into the ultimate In Crowd, the ones who wouldn’t be taking a dip in the Lake of Fire.” Sources - The sources for the article include Australians Marc Breault, described as a former “confidant” of Koresh’s who has spoken against Koresh since 1990; Breault’s wife Elizabeth Baranyi; and Jean Smith. Breault, an aspiring musician, admits to feeling resentment towards Koresh—he joined the group in hopes that he and Koresh, himself an accomplished musician, would form a successful rock band, an aspiration that would not be fulfilled. They are joined by former Indiana disk jockey David Jewell, who was never a member of the sect but who sued his ex-wife, Davidian Sherri Jewell, for custody of their daughter Kiri. Breault and other former members say Sherri Jewell was one of Koresh’s wives. Kiri lives in Michigan with her father, while Sherri remains with Koresh. (In 1995, Kiri Jewell will testify that she was raped by Koresh between the ages of 10 and 14—see July 21, 1995). Other sources include Robyn Bunds, one of Koresh’s first “wives” among the community (married to him at age 17, she says, when Koresh and his small group of followers lived in Pomona and La Verne, California). Bunds claims that Koresh told her he raped the 12-year-old sister of his wife Rachel Howell, who, Bunds says, crawled into bed with him to “get warm” and was forced to have sex with him. Koresh has denied the story, and claims to have had only two children, Cyrus and Star, both with his wife Rachel. However, birth certificates for many Davidian children are incomplete; the sources say that Koresh is the father of many of the children, and routinely has the mothers leave his name off the certificates. Bunds tells reporters: “When Vernon came along, he… said you had to give him all your money. You had to live on the property. You had to give up everything else. You had to give him your mind… your body.” She claims her parents gave well over $10,000 to Koresh’s sect and bought a house in Pomona for $100,000 in Koresh’s name (then Howell). She admits to having been jealous over having to share Koresh with his other wives, and says Koresh is the father of her son Shaun, whose birth name was Wisdom Bunds; she says Shaun is terrified of Koresh because he beat him. (Koresh says Bunds, not him, beat her son, an allegation which she admits, though she says Koresh also beat the child.) She says she left Koresh in Pomona after he began having sex with her mother Jeannine, and when he attempted to kidnap Shaun and raise him among the Waco Davidians. Jeannine Bunds is also a source, having left the Waco community shortly after her daughter left Koresh. (Don Bunds, Jeannine’s husband and Robyn’s father, remains in Waco with the Davidians.) Another source is Karl Henning or Hennig (the article uses both spellings), a Vancouver teacher who lived with the sect for two months. He says Koresh holds a “truly amazing accumulation of knowledge.” Also, the article relies on the recollections of Bruce Gent, a former Davidian who says he allowed Koresh to sleep with his teenaged daughter Nicole. Yet another source is Barbara Slawson, a member during the time of Koresh’s predecessors Lois and George Roden, who says she was never impressed with Koresh and left during the time he was solidfying his grasp on the leadership of the group. Slawson says she has two grandchildren in the group. “My primary reason for trying to help is the children,” Breault says. “They have no one else to help them. If people say we were stupid, well, that may be true. But the children aren’t.” Breault says he finally left the group after Koresh had sex with a 13-year-old Australian girl he had brought to Waco merely for sexual purposes. “I realized it wasn’t a matter of Biblical anything,” Breault later testifies during the Jewell custody case. “He just wanted to have sex with her.” Koresh says that Breault sees himself as a rival prophet attempting to convince his followers to join with him against Koresh, and says that Breault is the source of the stories of his alleged sexual relations with underage girls. Breault admits telling Australian Davidians that he, too, is a prophet, though he says he eventually confessed that he had lied to get the Davidians away from Koresh, and that for a time he attempted to create a breakaway, rival sect of the Davidians. Emotional Control - Jeannine Bunds says Koresh does not physically restrain his members. “I’m over 21, intelligent,” she says. “I could have walked at any time. I chose to stay. He doesn’t keep you. You can leave. What you have to understand, though, is he keeps you by emotion. When you’re down there, it’s all so exciting. You don’t know what he’ll come up with next. I guess everyone is looking for Utopia, Shangri-La. You don’t want any problems. It wasn’t all bad times, you know. The people in this are great. They’ll give you the shirt off their back. They’re nice, like everyone else in the world. Except they believe this.” Newspaper Asked to Hold Off Publishing Stories - Tribune-Herald managing editor Barbara Elmore says the newspaper put eight months of research into the stories, and held off printing them after federal authorities asked her “not to run anything.” The head of the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) task force investigating Koresh (see June-July 1992) says the stories did not influence the agency’s decision to raid the Davidian compound near Waco (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993). [Waco Tribune-Herald, 3/3/1993] After the BATF raid, Tribune-Herald editor Bob Lott defends his newspaper’s decision to publish the story, saying: “We’d been working on this story for eight months. It contained a lot of information the public ought to know. We decided it was time to let the public know about this menace in our backyard.… I’m under siege. There has been the suggestion that somehow we are responsible for this tragedy.” BATF spokeswoman Sharon Wheeler says the bureau has no complaints about Lott or the Tribune-Herald, but an unidentified BATF agent has allegedly said part of the responsibility for the deaths of four BATF agents during the raid rests on the local press. The bureau asked Lott to hold off publishing the series a month before the raid; the newspaper gave the bureau a day’s warning before running the first installment. [New York Times, 3/1/1993; Newsweek, 3/15/1993]

BATF agents wait to assault the Branch Davidian compound. [Source: LMPD Arcade]The Branch Davidians and their leader, David Koresh (see November 3, 1987 and After), are warned of an impending raid on their compound outside Waco, Texas, by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF—see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993). For several days, BATF agents have come into Waco from all over Texas; the day before the raid, BATF official Sharon Wheeler alerted news outlets in Dallas that “something big” was in the offing (see February 27, 1993). The morning of the raid, medical personnel alert Waco-area press and television personnel that the “feds” are preparing a large-scale exercise of some sort; some reporters and producers see evidence of the preparations for themselves. A large number of news reporters begin scouting the area for more information. Jim Peeler, a cameraman for Waco’s KWTX-TV, knows the Davidians are to be involved in the raid; he finds himself on a rural road near Mt. Carmel, the Davidian compound, where he encounters US mailman David Jones. Peeler asks directions from Jones, who, unbeknownst to Peeler, is Koresh’s brother-in-law and a Davidian affiliate. Peeler will later say that Jones seems to be doing some sort of reconnaissance when they stop their cars for their chat. Peeler tells Jones he is looking for Mt. Carmel, and they briefly discuss the “Sinful Messiah” series on Koresh that has been running in the Waco Tribune-Herald (see February 27 - March 3, 1993). Both hear the National Guard helicopters beginning their patrol. Jones asks Peeler: “Are there helicopters out here? Something’s gonna happen out here today. There’s too much traffic on the road.” Jones tells Peeler he is going home to watch television and see what is going on. Instead, he races to the compound and alerts Koresh; Jones will join the Davidians in the compound, and perish in the blaze that kills Koresh and others 51 days later (see April 19, 1993). [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; Austin Chronicle, 6/23/2000] Seven years later, the media learns that Peeler had been alerted to the raid by local law enforcement official Cal Luedke (see June 23, 2000). Peeler will later admit to tipping off Jones, but will claim he knew nothing of Jones’s affiliation with Koresh or the Davidians. He will say that he is sent to drive down the road until he encounters a roadblock put up by the Texas Department of Public Safety, and film whatever may happen. He will say he gets lost trying to find the road leading to the compound. Lawyer Richard DeGuerin, who will represent Koresh in the following weeks, will give a different version of Peeler’s words to Jones. DeGuerin will say: “David Jones had been out to get a paper. On the way back he was driving his car and saw someone that looked lost. He saw a newsman. After being satisfied that David was a mailman, the newsman said, ‘Well, you better get out of here because there’s a National Guard helicopter over at [Texas State Technical Institute], and they’re going to have a big shootout with the religious nuts.’” Jones drives to Mt. Carmel and alerts Koresh and his father, Koresh’s top aide Perry Jones, to the impending raid. [Newsweek, 5/3/1993; Dallas Morning News, 8/28/1993; Time, 10/11/1993] Later allegations that the Davidians were tipped off by Peeler’s colleague, KWTX-TV reporter John McLemore, will be disproven. [Dallas Morning News, 8/28/1993] Lieutenant Gene Barber of the Waco Sheriff’s Department will later testify that local police believe another possible source of information for KWTX-TV was an “informant” at the local ambulance company. Barber will say that on several earlier occasions, when police had put the ambulance company on standby, a KWTX-TV camera crew was sent to the site of the police activity even though the police had not disclosed it to the station. A 1996 House investigation of the Davidian debacle (see August 2, 1996) will conclude that not only were the Davidians aware of the impending raid, but many of them quickly prepared to “ambush” the raiders. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] After the raid, Virgil Teeter, the vice president of news for KWTX-TV, says he decided to send a camera crew to the Davidian compound only because of the “Sinful Messiah” articles on Saturday and Sunday morning. “We just thought it would be wise to be in the area,” he says. Teeter says no one from the station began videotaping until after the shooting started. “We didn’t go in before the agents,” he says. “We had no live coverage till long after the shooting started. There is no issue of criticizing us for our actions.” WFAA-TV in Dallas will broadcast some live footage from the raid and its aftermath, and that footage is broadcast nationally on CNN. [New York Times, 3/1/1993]

BATF agents surround the Branch Davidian compound in the first minutes of the raid. [Source: Associated Press]Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF, sometimes abbreviated ATF) prepare to serve arrest and search warrants against members of the Branch Davidian religious sect, housed in a compound they call Mt. Carmel, on a hill just outside Waco, Texas (see November 1992 - January 1993). The Branch Davidians are a Christian group currently led by David Koresh (see November 3, 1987 and After), who is the prime focus of the arrest and search warrants. Koresh and the Davidians are known to have large stashes of firearms, many of which authorities suspect are illegal to own by US citizens—automatic rifles, machine guns, and the like. Koresh has preached that the End Times, or Apocalypse, will begin sometime around 1995, and the Davidians must arm themselves to prepare for the coming conflict. As a result, Koresh and a number of Davidians have been amassing weapons since 1991, along with gas masks, bulletproof vests, and military-issue MREs, or “meals ready to eat.” [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; US Department of Justice, 7/16/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995]Large-Scale Raid Launched - After four days of preparation (see February 24-27, 1993), the BATF forces close on the compound: some 80 government vehicles, including two covered cattle trailers containing 70 BATF agents in full SWAT gear, reach the staging area near the compound by 7:30 a.m. Two or perhaps three Texas National Guard helicopters are deployed. [New York Times, 3/27/1993; Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; Austin Chronicle, 6/23/2000] The raid was originally planned for March 1, but was moved forward when the Waco Tribune-Herald began publishing its “Sinful Messiah” series about Koresh (see February 27 - March 3, 1993). BATF spokesman John Killorin will later say the BATF feared the cult might become more alert to the possibility of a raid once the series started. Tribune-Herald editor Bob Lott will say that the newspaper alerted federal authorities the day before the first installment ran, giving the BATF a chance to review its raid plans. [New York Times, 3/27/1993]Davidians Alerted - A local news reporter’s discussion with a US postal official inadvertently “tips off” the Davidians to the impending raid (see Before 9:45 a.m. February 28, 1993). BATF Decides Element of Surprise Unnecessary - Koresh is visibly agitated at the news of the impending raid; he tells Robert Rodriguez, whom many Davidians correctly suspect to be a BATF undercover agent (see January 11, 1993 and After): “Neither the ATF nor the National Guard will ever get me. They got me once, and they’ll never get me again.” Looking out of a window, he adds: “They’re coming, Robert, they’re coming.… The time has come.” Fearing that he will be caught on the premises when the raid begins, Rodriguez makes an excuse and hurriedly leaves. Once off the grounds, he alerts the BATF raid commanders that Koresh knows the agents are on their way. Rodriguez reports via telephone to his immediate superior, BATF tactical coordinator Charles Sarabyn, who relays word to Philip Chojnacki, the agent in charge of the raid. The commanders ask if Rodriguez has seen any signs of alarm or guns being distributed. Rodriguez says he has not, though he tells them that Koresh is so agitated that he is having trouble speaking and holding on to his Bible. According to a Treasury Department report (see Late September - October 1993): “Sarabyn expressed his belief that the raid could still be executed successfully if they hurried. Chojnacki responded, ‘Let’s go.’ A number of agents informed the Treasury investigative panel that Sarabyn said things like, ‘Get ready to go; they know we are coming.’” Chojnacki and Sarabyn decide to rush the raid, hoping to deploy before the Davidians are mobilized. [Newsweek, 5/3/1993; Dallas Morning News, 8/28/1993; Time, 10/11/1993; Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] Rodriguez will testify that he attempts to find Sarabyn and appraise him of his fears that the Davidians are preparing to resist with violence, but will say that by the time he arrives at the BATF command post, on the Texas State Technical College campus, Sarabyn and his companions have already departed. Rodriguez will testify: “At that time, I started yelling and I said: ‘Why, why, why? They know we’re coming, they know we’re coming.‘… [E]verything was very quiet, very quiet, and if I remember right, everybody was really concerned. I went outside and I sat down and I remember starting to cry.” Sarabyn and Chojnacki will later testify that while they understood Rodriguez’s fears, neither of them believe Koresh is aware of the impending raid; testimony from Rodriguez and another BATF agent, Roger Ballesteros, will contradict their claims. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] A Los Angeles Times report later makes a similar claim, apparently based on Rodriguez’s recollections; the BATF will deny that report entirely. A Waco Tribune-Herald article later reports that just before the raid, a voice comes over BATF radios saying: “There no guns in the windows. Tell them it’s a go.” Two weeks after the raid, Newsweek will incorrectly report that Rodriguez, whom the article does not identify, “apparently thought little of the call [alerting Koresh of the impending raid] at the time,” left the compound, and reported an “all clear” to his colleagues. [Newsweek, 3/15/1993] Other reports have Davidians telling one another, “The Assyrians are coming,” and making preparations to resist an assault. [Newsweek, 5/3/1993] In 1996, a Congressional investigation will find that Chojnacki and Sarabyn’s decision to go ahead with the raid even though the element of surprise had been lost was a “reckless” error: “This, more than any other factor, led to the deaths of the four ATF agents killed on February 28” (see August 2, 1996). [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]Davidians Resist - The Davidians successfully resist the raid (see 9:30 A.M. and After, February 28, 1993), in the process killing four BATF agents (see 11:00 A.M. and After, February 28, 1993) and bringing about a standoff between themselves and the FBI (see 12:00 p.m. February 28, 1993).

BATF agents attempt to force entry through a second-floor window of the Branch Davidian compound. At least one of the agents depicited will be shot in the firefight. [Source: Asian Celebrities (.com)]The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) launches its long-planned raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993). About 9:30, the BATF forces arrive at Mt. Carmel, the location of the Davidian compound. Two National Guard helicopters, which had been scheduled to create a diversion in the rear of the compound so as to allow the cattle trucks carrying the BATF agents to arrive unseen, are late in arriving, and fail to carry out their mission. The raid commanders are out of radio range and unable to abort the raid or modify the deployment of agents. Moreover, as some agents will later tell the New York Times (see March 27, 1993), only squad leaders can communicate with their team members, so communications are difficult, and when a squad leader is shot—and one will be shot in the first few minutes of the raid—that leader’s squad can no longer receive or send information. [New York Times, 3/27/1993]BATF Agents Advance, Shots Fired - At least 70 agents wearing bulletproof vests, helmets, and army gear emblazened with “ATF Agent” in yellow and white letters, emerge from the trailers and race towards the buildings in groups. Davidian leader David Koresh opens the front door and shouts: “What do you want? There’s women and children in here!” (Some reports say Koresh is unarmed; others say he is dressed in black and carrying an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.) The lead agent, Roger Ballesteros, brandishes a search warrant and shouts: “Police! Get down!” and Koresh closes the door. Moments later, BATF agents, including Ballesteros (see January-February 1994) and John Henry Williams, and Texas Ranger David Byrnes will report that the Davidians shoot first; Davidians will claim the opposite. One BATF agent will later report that a fellow agent actually shoots first, at a dog he feels is threatening him, but later that agent will retract the claim. A team of agents with a battering ram is slated to burst through the main doors. Two teams of BATF agents with ladders mount to the roof of the first floor and break into windows on the second floor, where they believe the weapons are stored. The ladder and battering ram teams all encounter heavy fire, and several agents are hit, including one on the roof who manages to hobble to a ladder and slide down. Davidians rain bullets from the upper windows onto the agents. One BATF team manages to force entry into the compound, but is unable to advance. Most of the agents are pinned down behind vehicles. The two sides exchange heavy gunfire. [New York Times, 3/27/1993; Newsweek, 5/3/1993; Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; Dick J. Reavis, 7/19/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995; LMPD Arcade, 2009] A federal law from 1917 mandates that federal agents use what is called the “knock and announce” approach—in essence, a federal law enforcement agent must knock on a door and announce himself and his intentions before entering. Ballesteros and his fellow BATF agents do not follow this legal provision, though the law does have several exceptions that may apply in this instance. A later House investigation will find the BATF’s choice not to “knock and announce” reasonable under the circumstances. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]Helicopter Activity - Two of the three helicopters land after taking fire. [Newsweek, 3/15/1993] Philip Chojnacki, the agent in charge, rides in one of the helicopters; he is almost struck by a Davidian bullet in the first minutes of the raid. [New York Times, 3/27/1993] The House investigation will find that Chojnacki’s presence in the helicopter essentially takes him out of the communications loop with the raid commanders and team leaders before the beginning of the raid, and deprives him of any opportunity to learn that the Davidians are planning an ambush. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] Catherine Mattison, a Davidian who will escape the April 1993 conflagration (see April 19, 1993), will say in 2003 that she saw gunfire from the helicopters. “They were shooting when they came in,” she will recall. “I went upstairs to my room and all of a sudden I could see three helicopters in V-formation firing. David’s rooms were in the back of the building and that’s where they were firing. I didn’t realize that for three months afterwards because of all the shock and commotion but they were trying to kill him right then.” [Guardian, 10/28/2003] Mattison’s allegations are unconfirmed; testimony from a number of agents will challenge her account, and videotape from the raid shows no gunfire from the helicopters. The helicopters are on loan from the National Guard, and are expressly forbidden to engage in any role save as observational. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]Machine-Gun Fire - Reflecting on the raid 10 years later, BATF agent Bill Buford will say: “But before I even got out of the trailer, I could hear machine guns, and I knew we didn’t have any.… I’m an old Vietnam vet, and I can tell you—the firing was intense.” Buford is wounded in the gun battle. “The one thing we had not planned for was to be pinned down by fire right out in front of the building,” Buford will add. “We did not anticipate we would come under such heavy fire, nor did we anticipate we would have such heavy casualties.” Buford will say that after the botched raid, the BATF will all but abandon such “insertion”-type assaults, and rely instead on surrounding a building and negotiating with the inhabitants. [Waco Tribune-Herald, 3/16/2003]Failure to Follow Manual - Ballesteros will later testify that no particular agent was assigned to announce their identity and the purpose of the raid. “We basically all announced,” he will say. He will admit that according to the BATF manual, “[o]fficers are required to wait a reasonable period of time to permit the occupants to respond before forcing entry,” and the agents do not follow that mandate. He will testify that the agents expected resistance, but not gunfire, and had not planned for that contingency. BATF agent Kenneth King, one of the two “ladder” team members who attempt to force entry through the second-floor windows, will also testify that the agents did not plan for gunfire, and were unprepared for such a heavy level of resistance. Later testimony also shows that some of the damage suffered by the agents may have been from “friendly fire”; one BATF agent is wounded by what later proves to be a 9mm hydroshock bullet, the ordnance being used by the BATF assault teams. [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995]

BATF agents attempt to enter the Branch Davidian compound. [Source: Associated Press]During the raid on the Waco, Texas, Branch Davidian compound (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and 9:30 A.M. and After, February 28, 1993), Wayne Martin, a Davidian and a Harvard-educated lawyer, calls 911. According to a recording of his call, Martin shouts: “There are 75 men around our building and they’re shooting at us! Tell ‘em there are children and women in here and to call it off!” Other similar phone calls are made to the 911 center and to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff attempts to reach the BATF commanders and put them in touch with Martin. [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995] Audiotapes of the phone calls between Martin and McLennan County Sheriff’s Department official Larry Lynch, released months later (see June 2003 and After), show Lynch’s efforts to persuade Martin to have the Davidians stop firing on wounded agents. Lynch asks Martin to let four wounded BATF agents reach another agent shot six times during the battle; Martin suddenly says the others in the compound fear an all-out assault. “We’re worried that the National Guard will fly in here with choppers,” he says. “We’re gonna assume that any chopper that comes in is National Guard.” While Lynch works to calm Martin, a BATF agent on another line tells Lynch: “All of our guys are in the open right now. If they open up, we’re gonna lose 20 guys.” Lynch asks Martin if the authorities can help any wounded Davidians, only to be told: “Here’s the message. We don’t want any help from your country.… I can tell you now. They’re not gonna leave this property.… Nobody wants to leave.… Each man’s making his own decision.… Some of them are dying.” [Dallas Morning News, 8/7/1993]

A cease-fire ends a violent, bloody conflict between the Branch Davidians, a group of religious separatists in their Waco, Texas, compound, and agents from the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms (BATF, sometimes abbreviated ATF), who launched a raid on the compound to serve search and arrest warrants on Davidian leader David Koresh (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and 9:30 A.M. and After, February 28, 1993). The cease-fire goes into effect after about 90 minutes of the two sides exchanging gunfire. Four BATF agents are dead and 16 are wounded, some severely. The agents retreat to a safe distance, where they mill around aimlessly; the commanders have not given the agents a plan for retreat or failure. The Davidians also withdraw inside their compound. Five Davidians, including a woman nursing her baby, are dead, and several, including Koresh, are wounded; Koresh suffers gunshot wounds in the hand and the side. (Two of the Davidians may have been killed by their fellows after being gravely wounded by BATF fire.) Three Davidians attempting to get to the main building from a warehouse on the property are apprehended by BATF agents; one is killed, one is arrested, and one escapes. In total, six Davidians are killed. [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996]Media Contacts - During the raid, CNN receives calls from Davidian Steve Schneider. CNN producers verify that Schneider is indeed inside the compound, and set up an interview with Koresh for this evening (see 5:00 p.m. February 28, 1993 and After). [New York Times, 3/1/1993]Negotiations and Implementation - The cease-fire takes some time to implement. Senior BATF agent James Cavanaugh succeeds in convincing Koresh and Schneider to agree to a cease-fire. Schneider has to walk through the main building to tell his people to stop firing; Cavanaugh has no direct radio link to his agents, and has to go through team leaders to tell them to stop firing. The cease-fire has been agreed upon for several minutes before the shooting finally concludes. As part of a 1996 House investigation of the Davidian debacle (see August 2, 1996), Cavanaugh will say: “I called the compound directly on the phone from the undercover house. I reached… Schneider. I told him I was an ATF agent and I wanted to talk to him about this situation. As should be expected, the activity inside the compound was very frantic, people were screaming and yelling, and there was still shooting going on both sides. Steve was very excited and very hostile. I wanted to negotiate a cease-fire, and he [Schneider] was agreeable. I am not going to be good on the time of how long it took, but it took a little while to negotiate that. He had to go throughout the compound, which is very large, telling everyone not to shoot. While he was doing this, there was still shooting going on both sides. I had to get on the command net frequency and tell the commanders on the ground there not to shoot, and they had to relay that to all 100 agents, who were around there, so it took a little time to arrange it. Once I returned to the rear command post I called back in on the telephone to the residence about 2:00 p.m. and I spoke with Steve and David Koresh about what was going on. We had long conversations about the warrant, and we also had a lot of conversations about Biblical passages and Mr. Koresh’s belief that he was the Lamb of God, who would open the Seven Seals. As you might assume, he was very hostile, very angry, and very upset.” [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] In the following days, Koresh will tell local reporters by phone that he is shot in the “gut” and his two-year-old daughter is dead from BATF gunfire. He will also leave a message on his mother’s answering machine in Chandler, Texas, which says in part: “Hello, Mama. It’s your boy.… They shot me and I’m dying, all right? But I’ll be back real soon, OK? I’ll see y’all in the skies.” [Newsweek, 3/15/1993] The body of the Davidian slain while trying to return to the compound, Michael Schroeder, will lie untouched in a gully for four days before authorities retrieve it; those authorities will wait 11 days before informing Schroeder’s parents of his death (see March 11, 1993). Death Toll - The four BATF agents slain in the raid are: Conway LeBleu, Todd McKeehan, Robert Williams, and Steve Willis. The six Davidians slain in the raid are Schroeder, Winston Blake, Peter Gent, Peter Hipsman, Perry Jones, and Jaydean Wendell. [Dallas Morning News, 2/27/2003] (Initial reports of the death toll inside the Davidian compound range from seven to 15; those reports are later determined to be wrong.) [New York Times, 3/3/1993]FBI Takes Control - Within hours of the raid’s conclusion, the FBI will take control of the situation and besiege the compound (see 12:00 p.m. February 28, 1993). Criticism of BATF Tactics - Soon after, the FBI publicly criticizes the BATF’s decision to storm the compound in a frontal assault. “It’s against our doctrine to do a frontal assault when women and children are present,” one FBI agent says. BATF spokeswoman Sharon Wheeler explains: “We were outgunned. They had bigger firearms than we did.” But former New York City Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward says of that explanation: “‘Outgunned’ is a euphemism for ‘outplanned,’ or ‘unplanned.’ They did it backwards. The accepted way is to talk first and shoot second.” Vic Feazell, a former district attorney for the area, says of Koresh and the Davidians, “They’re peaceful and nonaggressive unless they are attacked.” By going in, guns blazing, the BATF played right into the group’s apocalyptic vision, he says. “They would see this as a holy war provoked by an oppressive government.” [Newsweek, 3/15/1993]Standoff Will End in Fiery Conflagration - Most of the Davidians, including Koresh, will die in a fiery conflagration after a 51-day standoff with FBI agents (see April 19, 1993). After the site is secured, Texas law enforcement officials will recover over 300 firearms from the compound, as well as numerous live grenades, grenade components, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition. [US Department of Justice, 7/16/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995]

FBI agent in charge Jeffrey Jamar. [Source: PBS]The FBI dispatches agents to the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas, the scene of a bloody standoff this morning between the Davidian sect members and a large force of agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), which resulted in the deaths of four BATF agents and six Davidians (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993). By the afternoon, the FBI becomes the lead agency for resolving the standoff. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Jeffrey Jamar, head of the FBI’s San Antonio office, is named the on-site commander. The bureau quickly deploys its own agents, and local law enforcement officials, around the compound to ensure no one tries to escape. The deployment quickly becomes an all-out siege. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] President Clinton was reportedly angered at reports of the botched raid. His chief of staff, Mack McLarty, demanded of a senior Justice Department official, “What the hell happened here?” The order to replace the BATF with the FBI came from Clinton. [Newsweek, 3/15/1993] FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) personnel are in place by the afternoon, and hostage negotiators spend much of the afternoon talking on the telephone with Koresh. Some bring Bibles, later telling reporters: “This guy’s a Bible-citing machine. We have to speak his language.” As part of the negotiations to persuade Koresh to allow some of the sect members to leave safely, Koresh will be allowed to broadcast his religious teachings on a local radio station (see March 2, 1993) and to give an interview to a CNN reporter (see 5:00 p.m. February 28, 1993 and After). Texas Rangers attempt to begin their own investigation, but are barred by the FBI from continuing. Clinton closely follows the events as they progress. [Newsweek, 3/15/1993; PBS Frontline, 10/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995]

Marc Breault, a Branch Davidian who lived for years at the Mt. Carmel compound before rebelling against the leadership of David Koresh (see November 3, 1987 and After) in 1990 and leaving for Australia, is contacted by an FBI agent several hours after the failed raid on the Davidian compound (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993). Breault has talked about what he considers the threat of Koresh and the Davidians to US law enforcement authorities and the Australian media, and was interviewed for a series of articles about Koresh in the Waco Tribune-Herald (see February 27 - March 3, 1993). As part of its planning for the raid, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF, sometimes abbreviated ATF) talked to Breault and other Mt. Carmel “defectors” to get a sense of the situation. Breault warned the agents not to get overly aggressive with the Davidians. “The ATF agents I spoke with were quite good,” he will later recall. “They said they wanted to get Vernon [Howell, Koresh’s birth name] on his own, to lure him away from Mt. Carmel and arrest him. Their other scenario was a raid on Mt. Carmel. I said if they were going to do a raid they had better have the element of surprise or they would end up with an armed confrontation.” Another “defector,” David Bunds, also speaks with BATF agents before the raid. Bunds will later recall: “I said, ‘Don’t go in there with your guns. It won’t work.’ And they said, ‘Oh, we’re not going to do that.’” Hours after the raid, an FBI agent calls Breault for his take on the siege. “It was pretty chaotic,” Breault will later recall. “I talked with an FBI negotiator for half an hour. He asked what I thought Koresh would do. I said I thought it would end in massive death, a mass suicide. I explained Vernon’s belief about the fifth seal of Revelations, which said there had to be a certain number of martyrs before the end could come.” [Conway and Siegelman, 1995, pp. 255] In 1999, Breault will tell a Daytona, Florida, newspaper a similar story. “They [the BATF agents he spoke with] were afraid, based on some of the things he had written, that if they tried to assault the compound, he would start a fire,” Breault will recall. “They were afraid if they sent people into the compound there would be explosions, there would be fires set. They had lots of Scriptures, all [of them] he had gone over with us many times.” Breault will claim to have told BATF agents that fire was very much a part of Davidian prophecy. “There’s a Scripture in Daniel 11 that talks about how the righteous will fall,” Breault will say. “Some are taken captive; some die by the sword; and some die by the flame. Two parts of that prophecy had already been fulfilled, according to their beliefs. That was the problem. The Davidians thought they were seeing prophecy fulfilled before their very eyes. Flames were the only thing left.” Breault will say of Koresh: “I think they decided Vernon didn’t believe any of this stuff. They thought he was a con man. They failed to take into account the level of his belief and that of his followers. They couldn’t believe there was anyone that dedicated to an apocalypse.” He will add that the primary responsibility for the events of the siege, and the final assault, lay with Koresh and the Davidians: “I think people should keep in mind that in his theology, the apocalypse was inseparable from fire. I’ve always believed Vernon started the fire at Mount Carmel or set up a situation where an assault would start a fire. It’s possible the FBI inadvertently—you might say negligently—set the fire. But I think Vernon set it up.” [Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal, 9/12/1999]

The evening after the failed raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993), Davidian leader David Koresh gives three interviews: two with Dallas radio station KRLD and a nationally broadcast telephone interview on CNN. [New York Times, 3/1/1993; Moore, 1995] The interviews follow a demand from Koresh that KRLD broadcast a statement saying that federal agents are holding their fire and will not attack further, a demand that was granted. [US Department of Justice, 10/8/1993] During one of the radio interviews, he says, “All that is happening here is the fulfillment of prophecy!” In the CNN interview, he tells viewers: “If the scholars of this world, if anybody, ministers that claim that God talks to them, will contact me, and I hope it’s soon. If they’ll call me and show the world what the Seven Seals are and where they’re at in the prophecies, then I’ll be satisfied. And then we’ll all come out to you.” Koresh promises to begin releasing children “two by two” if his religious message is broadcast over Dallas radio station KRLD (see March 1, 1993). The CNN interview lasts about 20 minutes, and is rebroadcast periodically throughout the night. The same evening, the syndicated television show A Current Affair conducts a telephone interview with Koresh, and broadcasts it the evening of March 1. The Current Affair program also reports a threat from Koresh’s aide Steve Schneider, who says if federal agents attempt to conduct a second raid, the Davidians will again fire on them. In 1995, author Carol Moore will explain that Koresh and some Davidians believe that the raid on their compound comprises the opening of the Fifth Seal of the Book of Revelation, one of the so-called “Seven Seals” that must be breached for the Apocalypse to begin, and that they are living the events predicted in that seal. Koresh and his most devoted followers believe that the Davidians killed during the raid were slaughtered for “preaching God’s word” and the surviving Davidians only would have to “rest a little longer” until the “remainder” also were put to death. “Thus would begin the countdown to the Apocalypse and the Second Coming of Christ,” she will write. “Davidians believed that the siege was a God-given opportunity to spread Koresh’s message to the world and that humanity was being given its last opportunity to hear God’s word and repent.” [New York Times, 3/1/1993; US Department of Justice, 10/8/1993; Moore, 1995] Koresh tells telephone interviewers that he has been shot in the stomach and is bleeding badly. But, the New York Times will report, during his Tuesday audio broadcast (see March 2, 1993), “his voice sounded strong and firm.” [New York Times, 3/1/1993] Former Davidian Marc Breault tells the Waco Tribune-Herald that Koresh might be indulging in what he calls a “bit of theatrics” with his claim of being wounded. “Vernon [Howell, Koresh’s given name] was always saying he was sick and near death,” Breault says. “He’s real big on stomach sickness. He always complained about his stomach, saying he was in pain because of the people’s sins.” [New York Times, 3/2/1993]

Future Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) goes to the site of the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and April 19, 1993), to see if the gun ownership rights of the Davidians are being curtailed (see January 23, 1993 - Early 1994). Federal agents block his passage to the compound, but McVeigh stays for a few days sellling bumper stickers, pamphlets, and literature; among his offerings are titles such as “Make the Streets Safe for a Government Takeover,” “Politicians Love Gun Control” (featuring a Nazi swastika and a Communist hammer and scythe), “Fear the Government that Fears Your Gun,” and “A Man with a Gun is a Citizen, A Man without a Gun is a Subject.” McVeigh is particularly horrified by the FBI’s use of Bradley fighting vehicles, the tanks he manned during Desert Storm (see January - March 1991 and After), in the siege. He tells a student reporter: “The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful, and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control.” The normally self-effacing and reticent McVeigh even climbs up onto the hood of his car to be seen and heard better. “You give them an inch and they take a mile,” he says of the federal government. “I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is growing bigger and more powerful, and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control.” McVeigh leaves Waco after a few days and goes to Kingman, Arizona, to visit an Army buddy, Michael Fortier (see May-September 1993); he later goes to Arkansas to meet with a gun-dealing friend, Roger Moore, who calls himself “Bob Miller” at the gun shows they frequent (see January 23, 1993 - Early 1994); though he wants to build ammunition with Moore, McVeigh does not stay long, and later recalls Moore as being a dictator and a “pr_ck.” During his time in Waco, McVeigh becomes known to federal agents, in part because of an interview with a reporter from Southern Methodist University’s school newspaper, the Daily Campus. The published interview, printed on March 30, includes a photograph of McVeigh. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 67-70; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Douglas O. Linder, 2006] He is also captured on film by a crew from the Texas television station KTVT, a CBS affiliate, sitting on the hood of his car just outside the compound. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 155] Later he will tell friends at a Pennsylvania gun show that he crawled up to the perimeter fence erected by the FBI around the Davidian compound “without being seen by any of the agents,” and will warn one gun dealer, George (or Greg) Pfaff, that the Davidian standoff “could be the start of the government coming house-to-house to retrieve the weapons from the citizens.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 71] The college reporter, Michelle Rauch, will later testify in McVeigh’s criminal trial. She will recall meeting McVeigh on a hill outside the Davidian compound, where protesters and observers are gathered. She will recall that the hilltop was “a few miles” from the compound, making it difficult for the people gathered there to see any of the activities around the compound. McVeigh tells Rauch that the local sheriff should have just gone down with a warrant and arrested Davidian leader David Koresh. Rauch will recall McVeigh as being calm, and finds his statements quite helpful to her understanding of the protesters’ objections to the FBI standoff. Her article quotes McVeigh as saying, “It seems like the ATF [referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, sometimes abbreviated BATF] just wants a chance to play with their toys, paid for by government money”; “The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people”; “You give them an inch and they take a mile”; “I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government”; and “The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful, and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control.” McVeigh, according to the article, considers the BATF mere “pawns” of the federal government, and blames the government for the standoff, saying it violated the Constitution in surrounding the Davidian compound. The standoff, he says, is just the first step in a comprehensive government assault on the citizenry and Americans should be watchful for further actions. [Douglas O. Linder, 2006]

David Koresh, the leader of the besieged Branch Davidian sect near Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), promises the FBI that if an audiotape of his religious teachings is broadcast nationally, he will surrender. Davidian Scott Sonobe tells FBI negotiators, “Play Koresh’s tape on national TV and we will come out.” Shortly afterwards, another Davidian, Rita Riddle, tells negotiators, “Play [the] tape during prime time and the remaining women and children will exit.” The FBI agrees to have a one-hour audio recording of a Koresh sermon broadcast over local radio stations and, according to some sources, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). The audiotape of the sermon is carried out of the compound by one of the children, in a pre-arranged exchange with negotiators. The recording begins with Koresh’s promise to peacefully lead the Davidians out of the compound upon its broadcast. Koresh says, “I, David Koresh, agree upon the broadcasting of this tape to come out peacefully with all the people immediately.” Koresh claims to be the “lamb” in the Book of Revelation, and says of people’s refusal to believe in his divinity, “Even a man like Christ has to meet with unbelief.” In his recording, he says he is “involved in a very serious thing right now,” but is more concerned “about the lives of my brethren here and also really concerned even greater about the lives of all those in the world.” The New York Times characterizes the sermon as “rambling.” [New York Times, 3/3/1993; US Department of Justice, 10/8/1993; PBS Frontline, 10/1995] During the 58-minute broadcast, Koresh says that while he is concerned about the lives of his fellow Davidians, “I am really concerned even greater about the lives of all those in this world. Without Christ, without Jesus, we have no hope.… It would be so awesome if everyone could just sit down and have one honest Bible study in this great nation of America.… America does not have to be humiliated or destroyed.” In the Justice Department report on the siege issued months later (see October 8, 1993), the authors will admit that it is possible Koresh was not negotiating at all, but trying to convert the FBI agents to his beliefs before they were doomed to an eternity of divine punishment. [Moore, 1995] Shortly after the broadcast, Koresh reneges on the agreement, saying that God has told him to wait. Acting Attorney General Stuart Gerson reiterates that authorities will “talk them out, no matter how long it” takes (see March 1, 1993). President Clinton takes Gerson’s advice, and has military vehicles deployed near the compound for what are called safety purposes. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Koresh’s refusal to surrender is based in part on his claim that his sermon is not broadcast nationally, but only locally; Koresh’s sermon is played over only two radio stations in Waco and Dallas. Additionally, subsequent examination of Koresh’s audiotape and the letters he is regularly sending out finds that the FBI may be ignoring or failing to recognize key clues in Koresh’s rhetoric (see October 8, 1993). Harvard religions expert Lawrence Sullivan, in an analysis of Koresh’s letters and broadcast, will later note that Koresh is implicitly equating the wounds in the hand and side he suffered during the initial assault with the wounds suffered by Jesus Christ during the Crucifixion; Sullivan will suggest that Koresh sees his wounds as evidence of his strength, and therefore is less likely to surrender due to pressure from federal agencies than the FBI believes. [Moore, 1995; Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995]

Retired Colonel Charles Beckwith, the founder of the US Army’s Special Forces (sometimes known as “Delta Force”), calls the raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993), “a disgrace.” Beckwith says: “It’s crazy to shoot people like this. I’m just embarrassed that we live in a society where our government allows something like this to happen.” Beckwith is critical of the raid planning, particularly the lack of medical-evacuation equipment, and says the government should investigate why the raid failed so badly. “If I had done an operation, as head of the Delta Force, and had no medical evacuation for an hour and 40 minutes, I would probably have been court-martialed,” Beckwith says. “In an hour and a half a man lays out there, he’s gonna bleed to death.” [New York Times, 3/3/1993; New York Times, 3/7/1993]

Another child leaves the besieged Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993). Davidian leader David Koresh tells FBI negotiators that the remaining children in the compound are his. During the discussion of the children, FBI agents inform Koresh of the “rules of engagement” governing the siege; in return, Koresh makes a number of threats against the FBI in the event they assault the compound. He also reveals his desire for “one honest Bible study in this great nation of America.” [Moore, 1995]

The FBI releases an internal memo or document profiling Branch Davidian leader David Koresh (see November 3, 1987 and After), according to information published by the Houston Post in October 1993. The profile reads in part: “For years he [Koresh] has been brainwashing his followers for this battle (between his church and his enemies), and on Feb. 28, 1993, his prophecy came true (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993).… As of March 5, 1993, Koresh is still able to convince his followers that the end is near and, as he predicted, their enemies will surround them and kill them.… In traditional hostage situations a strategy which has been successful has been negotiated coupled with ever increasing tactical presence. In this situation, however, it is believed this strategy, if carried to excess, could eventually be counterproductive and could result in loss of life.… Every time his followers sense movement of tactical personnel Koresh validates his prophetic warnings that an attack is forthcoming and they are going to have to defend themselves. According to his teachings, if they die defending their faith, they will be saved.” [Houston Post, 10/16/1993] It is unclear whether this document is the same profile as the one written by FBI behavioral analysts Pete Smerick and Mark Young (see March 3-4, 1993).

Steve Schneider, David Koresh’s top aide inside the besieged Branch Davidian compound (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), suggests that federal agents might burn the compound down to destroy evidence. Both Koresh and Schneider are “highly agitated and upset,” according to a later Justice Department report, for most of the day. FBI negotiators privately say that the negotiations are at an impasse, and acknowledge their frustration at dealing with Koresh. Koresh offers to send out one of his followers, Melissa Morrison, if in turn he is allowed to talk to FBI informant Robert Rodriguez. The FBI refuses, and Koresh does not allow Morrison to leave the compound. [Moore, 1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995]

Pete Smerick. [Source: University of Louisville]The siege of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas continues (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993). FBI profilers Pete Smerick and Mark Young, who have warned that the authorities’ strategy of negotiation and intimidation may backfire (see March 3-4, 1993), predict that the siege will end with an all-out assault on the compound by federal authorities (see April 19, 1993). Smerick and Young also predict that most of the Davidians may well commit mass suicide (see March 5, 1993), and warn that a strong show of force is merely playing into Davidian leader David Koresh’s hands. In Washington, acting Attorney General Stuart Gerson talks FBI Director William Webster out of going to Waco to negotiate directly with Koresh. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] One of Smerick’s memos warns that aggressive measures would “draw David Koresh and his followers closer together in the ‘bunker mentality’ and they would rather die than surrender.” [USA Today, 12/30/1999] Tactical pressure, Smerick writes, “should be the absolute last option we should consider, and that the FBI might unintentionally make Koresh’s vision of a fiery end come true.” [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] On March 9, FBI officials will pressure Smerick and Young into issuing a memorandum that supports the increased harassment of the Davidians (see March 9, 1993). [Moore, 1995]

A Dallas Morning News investigation is unable to find definitive information about how the Branch Davidian sect, currently besieged by federal authorities after a shootout with BATF agents (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), supports itself financially. “How did an obscure religious sect manage to feed, clothe, house, and heavily arm dozens of devotees, with no obvious source of income?” the article asks, and does not provide a conclusive answer. Some members tithe their income and others donate their belongings. Federal authorities suspect the Davidians, or some individual members such as leader David Koresh (see November 3, 1987 and After), of selling drugs and/or laundering money. Except for a large and expensive cache of weapons (see June-July 1992), the Davidians live modestly, according to court documents. They own a few old cars, use recycled and scavenged building materials to work on their ramshackle Mt. Carmel home (or “compound” as some call it), aren’t up-to-date on their property taxes, and use cash, food stamps, and other public aid to purchase bulk food. The furnishings in the main building are comfortable but not plush; they have a swimming pool and a satellite dish, but no indoor plumbing. Steve Schneider, Koresh’s close aide, told reporters the day after the siege began that the members “all tithe… we work hard and save money.” Some members work outside the compound. Rick Ross, a Phoenix “deprogrammer” who believes Koresh runs a cult and has worked to help former Davidians reintegrate into society, has told reporters that “good salaries earned on the outside were plowed back into the sect.” Koresh is “very much into money,” he said. A federal agent says that Koresh requires members to give up their personal goods and homes, and takes all of the money; however, a former Davidian says that Koresh does not solicit contributions, and paid $40/month for room and board. “I never saw any interaction of money between disciples and Koresh,” he says. “I don’t know where he got his money from.… That’s the weird thing. You see he can afford all these things, and none of his people seemed like they had a lot of money. There’s something fishy here.” The 77-acre compound is valued at $122,000, and contains a main building (described by the reporters as “fortresslike”) and a number of small, ramshackle outbuildings and freestanding houses. [Dallas Morning News, 3/8/1993]

Some Waco-area authorities say the local law enforcement officials and judiciary erred in ignoring the Branch Davidians’ propensity for violence and stockpiling weapons when Davidian leader David Koresh and some of his followers were charged with violent felonies (see November 3, 1987 and After). Koresh and an unknown number of his Davidians are now besieged by FBI forces in their compound outside Waco (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993). Because Koresh’s trial ended in a hung jury, and the charges against his followers dismissed, all of their weapons were returned to them as federal and state law mandates. El-Hadi J. Shabazz, who as an assistant district attorney prosecuted Koresh and the other Davidians in 1987, says, “A McLennan County sheriff’s deputy out there said at the time they had enough weapons and ammunition to hold off the entire McLennan County Sheriff’s Department, the police department, and the local National Guard.” Five semi-automatic assault rifles, five ordinary rifles, two shotguns, and a large amount of ammunition were confiscated from Koresh and his five followers, and subsequently returned. “That was 1987,” Shabazz says. “Imagine what they have in 1993.” [New York Times, 3/10/1993]

Several former members of the Branch Davidian community outside Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), appear on the Phil Donahue morning talk show. The show opens with a wrenching interview with Kiri Jewell, a young woman who left the Waco group with her father. Donahue says to her: “[Y]ou lived in this compound from age six till about a year and a half ago. You’re no longer in the cult because your father [David Jewell] successfully sued your mother for custody and you made your way to freedom, we might say, a year and a half ago.” Donahue calls the Branch Davidians a “destructive cult,” noting leader David Koresh’s marathon Bible study sessions (see February 27 - March 3, 1993), and says: “So the pressure was enormous, wasn’t it? He was a very controlling person.” (Two years later, Kiri Jewell will tell of her repeated rapes at the hands of Koresh—see July 21, 1995.) Former Davidian Marc Breault, who left the community after losing a power struggle with Koresh (see Around 4:00 p.m. February 28, 1993), focuses on how “easy” it was for him to be “sucked in” by Koresh and his group. Cult expert Rick Ross draws a sharp line between the Davidians and Koresh, saying: “Many of the people in this compound are highly-educated, very intelligent people, many very idealistic, very loving, very kind. And the fact is that it’s sad to say, but we’re all vulnerable to the kind of mental manipulation that this man pulled on these people and he has exploited them, dominated them, and taken control of their lives.… The group’s got an absolute leader. Everything the leader says is right, is right. Whatever he says is wrong, is wrong. And if you think for yourself, you’re rebellious, you’re evil, and your family is, too.” [Tabor and Gallagher, 1995, pp. 120-121] Two days later, Koresh’s aide Steve Schneider will demand a transcript from the Donahue show; the FBI will deny the request. [US Department of Justice, 10/8/1993]

Texas Rangers notify the parents of Michael Schroeder, a Branch Davidian slain during the abortive raid on the Davidian’s Waco, Texas compound (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), of their son’s death. Sandy and Bill Connizzo, who live in Florida, had driven to Texas to try to rescue their son after hearing news reports of the raid and the subsequent siege, but were not allowed to approach the compound. They located Michael’s two-year-old son, Bryan Schroeder, and retrieved him from a group home where he had been placed after leaving the compound in the early hours of the siege. Finally, a Texas Ranger comes to their hotel room, 11 days after the raid, and informs them of their son’s death. The Ranger also informs them that Schroeder’s body had lain in a gully for four days before authorities retrieved it. His mother asks why they left him there for so long, and the Ranger replies that retrieving Schroeder’s body was not a high priority. The parents heed the advice and do not view the decomposed body of their son; his ashes are shipped to Florida for internment four months later. In 2000, Sandy Connizzo will say, “I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.” The Connizzos will continue to raise Bryan. [St. Petersburg Times, 2/28/2000] Later, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) agent will claim to have retrieved a gun from Schroeder’s body on March 3, but say he left the body where it lay. [Moore, 1995]

The FBI modifies its negotiation strategy with the besieged Branch Davidian members (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), saying it continues to insist on a peaceful resolution but will no longer listen to what some officials call “Bible babble.” FBI agent Richard Swenson tells reporters: “For an awful long period we listened literally for hours and hours. But after a cumulative period of time it became obvious that was not leading to a peaceful resolution. Frankly, we are not here to be converted.” Two Davidians, top aide Steve Schneider and Wayne Martin, meet with FBI senior agent Byron Sage and McLennan County Sheriff Jack Harwell (see March 11, 1993) outside the compound, in a conversation FBI commander Jeffrey Jamar later terms the “Dutch Uncle” discussion. Davidian leader David Koresh does not attend the negotiations, claiming to be “too sick to move.” Koresh has said he was wounded in the gunfight between Davidians and federal agents. [New York Times, 3/15/1993; New York Times, 3/16/1993; Moore, 1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995] In a 1995 interview, Harwell will note that Schneider has a degree in theology and Martin is a lawyer. “I don’t know about all the people out there,” he will say, “but I know that there were some well-educated people there who, because of their religion, maybe were different, but otherwise, they were just normal, everyday good people.” [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] In a 1995 interview, Sage will discuss the conversation between the four. He will recall that he and Harwell hoped to talk with Koresh, and had compiled a large set of documents—search warrants, arrest warrants, and so forth—to prove to Martin that their intentions were genuine. Sage will characterize Koresh as an “obstructionist.” Sage will say that he believes Koresh is trying to rein in Schneider, whom Sage believes has “been won over a little too much” by the FBI negotiations. Sage will say that by this time, he has no belief that Koresh is trying to negotiate a surrender in good faith. He also has strong doubts as to Koresh’s assumed psychosis or state of delusion. “He does not buy off on his own con,” Sage will recall. Sage will add that Koresh does not react well to being “held accountable” and has the pressure escalated on him to conclude the standoff. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995]

Steve Schneider, the second in command of the besieged Branch Davidians (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), repeatedly requests that the FBI allow Dr. Philip Arnold, a religious expert from Houston (see March 7, 1993), to discuss the “Seven Seals” with Davidian leader David Koresh. The “Seven Seals” are referenced in the Bible as the items that must be broken to allow the end of the world—the Apocalypse—to commence. Koresh and other Davidians have heard Arnold on a local radio station, KRLD. The FBI refuses the request, though agents do contact Arnold about getting audiotapes of his radio program. The FBI will have no more contact with Arnold. [Moore, 1995]

David Koresh, the leader of the besieged Branch Davidian sect near Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), refuses to allow his top aide Steve Schneider to talk further with FBI senior agent Byron Sage (see March 15, 1993). Instead, Sage urges Koresh to surrender, questioning his sincerity and challenging him to take some positive action. Sage and FBI commander Jeff Jamar decide to increase the pressure on Koresh, hoping to force him into surrendering; the next day, agents broadcast a message into the compound over loudspeakers, advising those inside that they will be treated fairly if they come out. FBI profiler Pete Smerick, frustrated at the increasingly aggressive tactics being employed (see March 3-4, 1993 and March 9, 1993), leaves the site. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995]

A Houston psychiatrist who has interviewed the children released from the besieged Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), reports that some of the children have drawn pictures of the compound being consumed by flames. Other children have told him that “everyone is going to die” in the compound, that Davidian leader David Koresh intends “to blow you all up,” and when the children left the compound, their parents promised to “see them in heaven.” The children’s statements and drawings are another indication of a violent end to the siege, with the possibility of a mass suicide (see April 19, 1993). [Conway and Siegelman, 1995, pp. 244]

Six women and one man depart the besieged Branch Davidian compound (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993) and are taken into federal custody. Two women leave at 1:30 a.m. Davidian leader David Koresh again reneges on his previous promise to surrender (see March 19, 1993), telling FBI negotiators, “I told you my God says wait.” After Koresh’s statement, two more women leave around 10:30 a.m. During the afternoon, a woman and a man leave the compound. The seven Davidians to leave are Victoria Hollingsworth, James Lawton, Sheila Martin, Gladys Ottman, Annetta Richards, Rita Riddle, and Ofelia Santoya. FBI agents say the departures raise hopes that a large-scale surrender may be in the offing, but caution that they have no way to know if any such surrender is actually being planned. In recent days, Koresh has been allowing small numbers of Davidians to leave in return for delivery of items such as milk, medical supplies, and national news magazines with articles about the Davidians. FBI agent Bob Ricks says Koresh can be fractious and uncooperative: “It’s very difficult for him to handle anyone who puts a demand on him,” Ricks says. Koresh has suggested that “certain astrological things” may mean a large-scale surrender is forthcoming. “My understanding is he is relaying to us that certain events have occurred which he takes to be at least a sign, or signs have taken place, and he believes that other things are in motion that would fulfill his desire to have a sign,” Ricks says. Ricks says Koresh has indicated he wants to ensure that he stays alive to spread his message. He quotes Koresh as saying: “I have a great desire to settle this issue. I realize if I’m dead, my message will not come out.” [New York Times, 3/22/1993; Moore, 1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995]

Jeffrey Jamar, the leader of the FBI contingent at the Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), calls a meeting of the FBI’s crisis management team on-site. The team discusses what it calls “stress escalation measures,” methods designed to increase the stress on the Davidians and particularly on their leader David Koresh. Some of these measures are already being used (see March 14, 1993 and March 21, 1993). If these measures fail, FBI negotiators recommend using tear gas to drive members out of the compound (the negotiators will later say that they came up with their own assault plan for fear that other FBI officials would mount a more aggressive and dangerous plan of their own—see August 1993 and August 2, 1996). However, the negotiators predict that while Koresh will continue to stall, eventually he will cooperate in producing a peaceful outcome to the siege (see March 3-4, 1993). [New York Times, 3/25/1993; Moore, 1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995]

Branch Davidian Livingstone Fagan leaves the besieged compound (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993). He is the last Davidian to leave before the final conflagration (see April 19, 1993). The FBI apparently believes that its “stress escalation measures” (see March 21, 1993 and March 22, 1993) are driving the Davidians out of the compound. That evening, the FBI shines floodlights into the compound and, over the loudspeakers, begins playing tapes of previous negotiations and messages from Davidians who have left the compound (see March 22, 1993). In the hours after midnight, agents begin playing exceedingly loud music (see March 21, 1993) and taped sound effects (including the sounds of rabbits being slaughtered), angering some of the Davidians inside the compound. Assistant US Attorney William Johnston of Waco writes a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, complaining about the methods the FBI is employing to resolve the siege. [Moore, 1995; Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995]

According to the New York Times, areas outside the besieged Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), have been transformed into somehing approaching “a carnival atmosphere… complete with hawkers offering bad coffee and souvenirs in bad taste, including a T-shirt that proclaims: ‘My Parents Went to Mount Carmel and All I Got was this Lousy AK-47!’” Protesters, mostly calling themselves concerned Christians or “libertarians” advocating against the government, also make their presence known. [New York Times, 3/25/1993]

The New York Times publishes a “special report” that claims the February 28 federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993), was “laden with missteps, miscalculations, and unheeded warnings that could have averted bloodshed.” The report is based on interviews with several Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) agents involved in the raid as well as FBI agents and soldiers skilled in military raids. At least one of the BATF agents likens the raid to the infamously unsuccessful Charge of the Light Brigade. Four of the agents say that their supervisors knew the BATF agents had lost the element of surprise, but went ahead with the raid anyway. The Times says the raid was “the costliest and deadliest operation in the history of the” bureau. BATF leaders insist they did nothing wrong, and blame a last-minute warning about the raid to the Davidians for the agents’ failure to apprehend Davidian leader David Koresh. BATF chief Stephen Higgins said recently: “I’ve looked at it and rethought it. There was no problem with the plan.” But, the Times notes, the BATF “has provided only sketchy details of what happened, why the raid was even tried, and why it was carried out when it was.” The warrants that provided the basis for the raids are currently sealed (see February 25, 1993); no criminal charges have yet been filed; no government official has even clearly articulated what laws Koresh or his fellow Davidians are believed to have violated, though BATF officials say they believe Koresh has violated federal firearms and explosives laws, and Higgins told a reporter that it was the illegal conversion of weapons from semi-automatic to automatic that led to the raid. Problems Underlying the Raid - Based on its interviews with its sources, the Times says the following problems caused the raid to fail: The BATF did not conduct round-the-clock surveillance on Koresh, so its agents did not know for sure if they could have arrested him while he was out of the compound. “Supervisors of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms knew they had lost the element of surprise even before the agents tried to surround the compound but ordered agents to move in anyway.” It was common knowledge in Waco and the surrounding area that something large was being prepared. Hotel workers were amazed to see men from Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans descend on their hotels, wearing army fatigues and talking on two-way radios, which area residents could monitor on police scanners. In addition, at least one BATF official alerted Dallas television news stations to the impending raid the day before it took place (see February 27, 1993). At least 11 reporters were at the scene before the raid began, though none have said how they knew to be there. The reporters now say the BATF did nothing to prevent them from watching and videotaping the raid, and add that agents only became hostile after it became clear that the raid was a failure. “Helicopters carrying [BATF] agents came under fire over the compound before the assault began, yet the bureau pushed ahead with the mission, which relied on an element of surprise.” The helicopters, on loan from the Texas National Guard and used to observe the raid from the air, quickly came under fire; a bullet passed close to the head of Philip Chojnacki, the agent in charge of the raid. When the helicopters were fired upon, several agents tell the Times, the raid should have been aborted. “That was inexcusable,” one career agent says. “As soon as those shots were taken, the raid should have been aborted. Instead, we were ordered to walk right into it.” He and others say that the agents who were heading toward the compound on the ground were not warned that shots were being fired by the cult. “The operation was hindered by a communications strategy that made it impossible for different squads surrounding the compound to talk to each other after their squad leaders had been wounded.” Some agents had not been supplied with contingency plans for encountering heavy gunfire, even though supervisors knew that the cult had for years been stockpiling weapons and suspected that sect members had been converting semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons to make them more deadly.” “Some agents’ requests to take more powerful weapons were denied and many had only handguns to face the cult’s arsenal, which included many rifles and at least one .50-caliber weapon.” “Some agents had not been briefed about the operation until a day earlier and had never been told of the cache of assault-style weapons they would be facing.” “The firearms bureau did not bring a doctor or set up a dispensary to treat wounded agents, a practice of the FBI. Wounded agents ended up being carried, some by other agents, others on the hoods of trucks and cars, down a muddy road hundreds of yards to await medical assistance.” No Faith in Promised Federal Investigation - Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen, whose department oversees the BATF, has promised a full and independent investigation of the raid. But the Times’s sources say they do not trust Bentsen to launch such an investigation; presumably this explains why they agreed to talk to the Times about the raid. The BATF and FBI agents have been ordered not to publicly discuss the raid, and say the orders on the subject implied they would be disciplined and prosecuted for describing the events of the raid. [New York Times, 3/27/1993]

After four straight days of no communication, David Koresh, the leader of the besieged Branch Davidians (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), tells the FBI that he has no intention of dying, and is still waiting for a message from God to tell him what he needs to do to resolve the standoff. The Davidians send a videotape to the FBI, showing well over a dozen children in the compound. The children seem tired but healthy. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995]

Jeff Jamar, the commander of FBI forces on the ground at the Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), overrules objections from US attorneys and Texas Rangers, and allows Davidian leader David Koresh to meet with his attorney, well-known Houston defense lawyer Richard DeGuerin (see March 11, 1993). After an initial telephone conversation, the two men meet at the door of the compound and talk for almost two hours. The next day, Koresh and DeGuerin meet two more times. DeGuerin will tell Jamar that he is “frustrated” in his attempts to negotiate a surrender. [New York Times, 3/31/1993; PBS Frontline, 10/1995] DeGuerin tells reporters that he is “very hopeful” of resolving the situation. Speaking of Koresh, he says: “My client wants everybody to be safe. And so do I.” FBI agent Bob Ricks says agents have an attitude of “guarded or cautious optimism” about the new development. “We are cautiously optimistic that this is one of the significant events necessary to bring this to final resolution,” he says of Koresh’s meetings with DeGuerin. “But we have been disappointed in the past.” Ricks emphasizes that DeGuerin is not negotiating on behalf of the FBI or anyone else. “At this point, he is not acting as a negotiator,” he says. “We have agreed to complete confidentiality and are treating the conversations that he is having with Mr. Koresh as privileged. We are not recording those conversations. We are removing ourselves to a sufficient distance, approximately 75 yards away from the compound, to insure that those conversations will not be overheard.” Ricks does not give details of the conversations between Koresh and DeGuerin. “They’ve been characterized in general terms as dealing with substantive matters and not religious matters,” he says. “That is, how does the system work and what his rights are under the criminal justice system.” [New York Times, 3/31/1993] Koresh also speaks with attorney Jack Zimmerman by phone. Zimmerman represents Koresh’s lieutenant, Steve Schneider. [New York Times, 3/31/1993; Moore, 1995]

Branch Davidian member Rita Riddle, who left the besieged Waco compound days before (see March 21, 1993), says that when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) agents raided the compound (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), she saw shots fired from BATF helicopters. BATF and Justice Department officials have denied that any gunfire was delivered from the helicopters, which they say served as observation posts and instruments of intimidation during the raid. Riddle says bullets were coming straight down through the roof, and could only have come from helicopters. “They say these helicopters were not armed. Bull puck,” she tells reporters. “I heard them spraying the building when they went over.” BATF spokesman David Troy says flatly that “the helicopters did not overfly the compound.” The helicopters were made available to the BATF by the Texas National Guard, which had been informed by BATF agents that the compound may have housed a methamphetamine laboratory. Drug interdiction is one reason the National Guard can loan helicopters to another agency. BATF agents told the National Guard that their evidence was based on infrared scans, which located two “hot spots” that sometimes indicate a place where drugs are being manufactured. Riddle says those “hot spots” were places where the Davidians have heaters. “Once they go in there, they’ll be in for a big surprise,” she says. “To my knowledge, there’s nothing illegal in there.” [Los Angeles Times, 3/30/1993]

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard, who represents Attorney General Janet Reno in the Branch Davidian situation (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), holds meetings in Waco and San Antonio to learn about the infighting between FBI and other law enforcement officials. The next day, Reno hears Richard’s report, and assigns Ray Jahn as the Justice Department’s lead prosecutor and coordinator. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] The infighting at Waco is largely between two camps: the FBI negotiators and the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, or HRT. The negotiators are willing to take whatever time is needed to win the release of everyone inside the compound, mostly by building trust and then using that trust to get people out. The HRT, more inclined to action than talk, has pressed since the beginning of the standoff to increase the pressure on Davidian leader David Koresh and his followers. Several times, the HRT has actively undermined negotiators’ efforts with the Davidians; at one point, the negotiators persuaded Koresh to let two people leave, but that very same night, HRT turned off the electricity to the compound, enraging Koresh (see March 12, 1993). Days later, the negotiators won the release of seven more people, but that same evening, HRT ordered the bulldozing of several Davidian cars outside the compound and bombarded the compound with loud music (see March 21, 1993). Negotiators have complained that whatever trust they have managed to secure has been undermined by the HRT. Two FBI agents who agree with the negotiators are the profilers Peter Smerick and Mark Young (see March 3-4, 1993), who warned their superiors that increasing the pressure on Koresh and the Davidians would precipitate a bloody, violent end to the standoff (see March 7-8, 1993). Smerick and Young also warned that the HRT’s tactics would drive the Davidians ever closer to Koresh, uniting them together by demonstrating that the government agents outside the compound are indeed their enemy, as Koresh preaches. Later investigation will show that the negotiators failed to make progress in part because of harassment from the HRT. [New Yorker, 5/15/1995]

Lawyer Richard DeGuerin (see March 29-31, 1993) says that talks with his client, Branch Davidian leader David Koresh, have been hampered by Koresh’s gunshot wounds. Koresh was shot by federal agents during a raid on the Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993). The compound has been besieged for a month by the FBI (see March 1, 1993), with little progress made in negotiating a peaceful conclusion. DeGuerin says that he and his associate Jack Zimmerman, a lawyer representing Koresh’s aide Steve Schneider, have no plans for further discussions with their clients. “We’ve done about all a lawyer can do now,” DeGuerin says. According to federal agents, doctors say Koresh’s wounds are not life-threatening. DeGuerin says Koresh is “suffering from his wounds, and he’s a little tired” and “needs a doctor.” But FBI agent Bob Ricks says officials will not allow a doctor inside the compound. “There’s plenty of medical attention just a few hundred yards away, and that will all be provided when people come out of the compound,” he says. FBI doctors have examined videotapes of Koresh’s wounds. [New York Times, 4/2/1993]

Stephen Higgins, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), now admits that some elements of the BATF raid on the Branch Davidian compound (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993) may have been flawed. Days before, Higgins told an interviewer that the raid went off as planned, and did not end well because someone alerted the Davidians to the impending raid (see March 30, 1993). Testifying before a Senate subcommittee, Higgins says, “We probably will find things we did right and things we did wrong, and we will respond accordingly.” Higgins refuses to answer specific questions about the events leading up to the assault on the compound, but he now admits that BATF supervisors may have decided to stage the raid even after losing the element of surprise, as a number of BATF and FBI agents have claimed (see March 27, 1993). That is “an open question” under review, he testifies. He also admits that the Davidians may have known there were federal agents mounting an undercover operation (see January 11, 1993 and After). “I can’t say to my knowledge it’s not true,” he says. Previously, Higgins denied that the undercover agents were discovered. [New York Times, 4/3/1993]

Several dozen libertarian, right-wing “patriot,” and gun rights activists protest outside the besieged Branch Davidian compound (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993, March 1, 1993, and March 25, 1993). In addition, right-wing extremist Linda Thompson has a cadre of armed “unorganized militia” members involved in the protests. [Moore, 1995] The protests will lead some in the Justice Department to speculate that organizations such as Thompson’s may attempt to effectuate an armed “rescue” of the Davidians (see April 17-18, 1993).

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